IvIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

GIFT    OF 

s2-^A,<nr[ 


Class 


BIMETALLISM 


BONDAGE  OR  BLOOD 


The  Money  Question  Made  Plain 


'onclusive  proof  that  a  crisis  is  at  riand  when  we  must  choose 

either  Bimetallism  by  the  Ballot,  Base  Bondage 

for  the  Masses,   or  i*    Bioody  War 

of  Classes. 

Don't  Leap  in  ihe  Dark.     Let  Every  Patriot  Study  the  Question.      Nf>t  hri'f  so 
hard  to  understand  as  money  sl^arks  would  liave  you  believe. 


By   Hon.    ZACH    MONTGOMERY 

K>;.    U.   S.   Assistant    Attorney-General,   now   of  the   L<:.s 
.\ng-eles  Bar,  California. 


Dedicated  to  the  Friend <  (A  I  ihr rty  Everywhere 


This  pamphlet  will  be  sent  to  any  part  of  the  United  States,  freight  or  posta^te 
Ipaid.  I  copy,  15  cts.;  4  copies,  50  cts.;  lo  copies  $1.00;  100  copies  $9.00;  1,000  cop- 
ies, $75.  Payment  must  accompany  order.  Address  Z.  Montgomery  &  Son, 
lAttor '    '  ^    Angeles,  Cal.,  or  R.  J.  Montgomery,  Oakland,  Cal. 


BIMETALLISM 


BONDAGE  OR  BLOOD 


The  Money  Question  Made  Plain 


Conclusive  proof  that  a  crisis  is  at  hand  when  we  must  choose 

either  Bimetallism  by  the  Ballot,  Base  Bondage  . 

for  the  Masses,  or  a    Bloody  War 

of  Classes. 

Don't  Leap  in  the  Dark.    Let  Every  Patriot  Study  the  Question.      Not  half  so 
hard  to  understand  as  money  sharks  would  have  you  believe. 


Bv   Hon.    ZACH   MONTGOMERY 

Ex.   U.  S.   Assistant   Attorney-General,  now  of  the   Los 
Angeles  Bar,  California. 

OF  THE 

UNIVfcKSt  IV 

OF 
Dedicated  to  the  FriendsoTLibcrty  Everywhere 


This  pamphlet  will  be  sent  to  any  part  of  the  United  States,  freight  or  postage 
paid.  I  copy,  15  cts.;  4  copies,  50  cts.;  10  copies  $1.00;  100  copied  $9.00;  1,000  cop- 
ies, $75.  Payment  must  accompany  order.  Address  Z.  Montgomery  &  Son, 
Attorneys,  Los  Angeles,  Cal.,  or  R.  J.  Montgomery,  Oakland,  Cal. 


*,^l 


To   Publishers. 


Although  this  little  volume  is  copyrighted,  yet  in  aid  of  the 
cause  it  advocates,  any  newspaper  or  magazine  publisher,  is  au- 
thorized to  publish  the  whole  or  any  part  of  it  on  condition  that 
in  the  same  issue  he  will  publish  this  card,  together  with  all  the 
matter  on  the  outside  title  page,  to  enable  such  readers  as  desire 
the  entire  book,  to  know  what  it  is  and.  how  to  get  it.  Or  in  lieu 
of  the  title  page,  the  option  is  given  to  publish  the  official  statis- 
tical tables  in  the  appendix  These  tables  should  be  the  familiar 
and  constant  companions  of  all  who  wish  to  know  the  truth  and 
how  to  defend  it.  ^ 

ZACH    MONTGOMERY. 

Witness: 

)■■ 

F.  H.  Skeel 
D.  Roses 


"entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  tlie  year  A.  D.  1895,  by  Z.  Montgomery 
in  the  office  of  tiie  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


PREKACK 


Before  proceeding  tu  discuss  the  question  of  Bimetallism, 
which  the  writer  prefers  to  call  United  Metallism,  he  desires 
to  say  that,  while  his  position  on  this  question  is  not  by  any 
means  in  accord  with  that  of  the  present  democratic  admin- 
istration, yet  it  is  not  hit  purpose  to  criticise  the  motives 
of  Mr.  Cleveland  in  taking  the  stand  he  has  relative 
thereto.  The  wTiter's  four  years'  personal  and  official 
acquaintance  with  Mr.  Cleveland,  extending  from  May, 
1885,  to  March,  1889,  covering  his  term  of  office  as  United 
States  assistant  attorney-general,  convinced  him  that,  how- 
ever wrong  in  his  views  Mr.  Cleveland  might  sometimes  be, 
those  views  were  honestly  formed  and  honorably  maintained. 
Grievously  wrong  as  he  seems  to  be  on  the  silver  question, 
unlike  some  of  his  present  follow:ers,  he  has  at  least  been 
consistent  in  that  wrong. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  proof  more  convincing  of  a 
man's  unwavering  purpose  to  do  his  duty,  as  he  understands 
his  duty,  than  Mr.  Cleveland  once  furnished  in  the  writer's 
own  case.  He  can  never  forget  the  violent  assaults  made  on 
him  about  the  time  of  his  appointment,  by  most  of  the  lead- 
ing journals  of  both  political  parties  of  New  York  and  other 
eastern  States,  because  of  what  were  falsely  charged  to  be  his 
views  touching  the  school  question.     He  was  denounced  as 

( iii ) 

178765 


IV  PREFACE. 

an  enemy  of  education,  and  some  of  these  papers  urged  and 
demanded  that  his  commission  be  revoked;  and  the  Presi- 
dent, in  certain  quarters,  was  roundly  abused  for  refusing  to 
comply  with  the  demand.  Misunderstood  and  misrepre- 
sented as  the  writer  was,  the  President  could  not  possibly 
have  performed  a  more  popular  act  than  to  demand  his  res- 
ignation. But  instead  of  doing  so,  he  deliberately  investi- 
gated the  matter,  and  having  learned  the  truth,  he  stood  by 
the  appointment  with  a  degree  of  firmness  born  of  true 
moral  courage,  such  as  not  one  man  in  ten  thousand  would 
have  manifested  under  like  circumstances.  In  this,  Mr. 
Cleveland  proved  himself  a  man  of  remarkable  independence 
and  courage,  and  placed  the  writer  under  a  debt  of  gratitude 
that  he  can  never  forget;  and  nothing  short  of  an  impera- 
tive sense  of  duty  could  induce  him  to  promulgate  this  ear- 
nest protest  against  what  he  sincerely  regards  as  Mr,  Cleve- 
land's most  disastrous  financial  policy. 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS. 

Page. 

A  Word  of  Warning 7 

United  Metallism 9 

Supply  and  Demand  Regulate  Prices 12 

Astounding  Financial  Occurrence 14 

Rise  in  Value  of  Gold  in  Fifteen  Years 17 

Ratio  of  the  World's  Gold  and  Silver 18 

Uncle  Sam,  Dealing  in  Sound  Money,  Loses  |8,ooo,ooo 

IN  Ten  Days 20 

Five  Thousand  Millions  of  American  Bonds  Held  in 

England 26 

How  Foreign  Debts  May  Ruin  America 27 

Compound  Interest  a  Vampire .  29 

The  Vanguard  of  English  Landlordism    .......  32 

The  Proper  Remedy 34 

Would  This  Be  Repudiation? 34 

Can  Legislation  Lvcrease  the  Value  of  Silver?    .    .  36 

Is  the  Raising   of  the   Price  of  Silver  an   Outrage?  40 

Wisner  on  the  Bankers'  Picnic 42 

Waiting  for  the  Consent  of  Europe 43 

Are  They  Sincere? 44 

Premium  on  Counterfeiting 46 

Are  the  Poor  Growing  Poorer  and  the  Rich  Richer  ?  48 

Government  Money  and  the  Bankers 50 

How  Bankers  Avoid  Taxes 52 

Two  Kinds  of  Anarchists 54 

Carlisle  in  1878     . 57 

Valuable  Tables 58-64 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/birnetallismbondaOOmontrich 


A  WORD  OF  WARNING! 


United  We  Stand,  Divided  We  Fall  ! ! 


While  it  would  not  be  just  to  charge  dishonest  motives  to 
all  advocates  of  monometallism,  yet  many  are  amenable  to 
that  charge.  Many  will  resort  to  any  available  means  to 
hold  their  grip  on  the  throats  of  the  people.  Knowing  well 
that  if  all  their  victims  are  once  united  their  own  cause  is 
lost,  they  adopt  the  maxim,  '^Divide  and  conquer y  In 
order  to  foment  dissentions  amongst  those  who,  upon  every 
principle  of  patriotism,  should  stand  as  a  unit  on  the  one 
great  question  of  the  day,  they  will  appeal  to  party  preju- 
dices, they  will  scatter  their  gifts  of  gold  amongst  the  leaders 
of  trades  unions  and  other  labor  organizations,  in  order, 
when  possible,  to  induce  them,  while  loudly  denouncing 
''gold  bugs''  to  do  the  work  of  gold  bugs,  by  sowing 
amongst  their  associates  the  seeds  of  discord  and  strife. 
They  will  subsidize  the  press,  and  employ  all  other  agencies 
to  foment  religious  prejudices,  bickerings,  and  violence  be- 
tween Catholics  and  Protestants,  knowing  full  well  that  if 
they  can  only  succeed  in  so  far  embittering  these  two  great 
bodies  of  religionists  against  each  other  as  to  materially 
divide  their  votes,  they  can  then  rivet  their  chains  upon 
both.  Remember,  union  and  '  'eternal  vigilance  are  the  price 
of  liberty. ' '  Discord  and  strife  mean  defeat,  dishonor,  des- 
titution and  death. 


lU  N  I  V  E  K  S  I T  yJ 


UNITED   METALLISM 

VS. 

MONOMETALLISM. 


SHALL  GOLD  ALONE,  OR  SHALL  SILVER  AND  GOLD  UNITED, 
CONSTITUTE  OUR  MONEY  STANDARD  ? 

This  is  the  great  question  which  to-day  is  agitating  the 
people  of  the  civihzed  world,  and  more  particularly  the  peo- 
ple of  these  United  States.  In  discussing  this  question,  let 
us  deal  with  it  first  from  a  common  sense  standpoint,  with- 
out reference  to  our  financial  history,  and  afterwards  let  us 
invoke  our  financial  experience  in  order,  to  test  the  accuracy 
of  our  arguments  and  the  soundness  of  our  conclusions. 

The  writer  has  taken  the  statistics  quoted  in  these  pages, 
in  part,  from  the  United  States  census  reports,  but  not  hav- 
ing, in  all  cases,  the  original  tables  before  him,  he  has  copied 
in  part  from  Archbishop  Walsh's  pamphlet  on  "Bimetal- 
lism," and  partly  from  Mr.  W.  H.  Harvey's  "Coin's  Finan- 
cial School. "  As  to  the  last  named  statistics,  not  having 
seen  them  impeached  by  any  of  the  numerous  critics  of  those 
writers,  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  they  are  at  least  substan- 
tially correct.  Of  late,  we  have  all  read  and  heard  much 
about   SOUND    MONEY,    and   about   its   importance  to   the 

(9) 


iO  BIMETALLISM. 

welfare  of  the  country  and  the  happiness  of  the  people. 
Now,  there  is  really  no  difference  of  opinion  amongst  intelH- 
gent  people  of  any  class  or  condition  as  to  the  vital  impor- 
tance of  having  a  sound  circulating  medium  for  our  money ; 
and  by  money  is  understood  primary  money,  that  money 
which  everybody  must  accept  as  money  in  the  payment  of 
all  money  debts.  What,  then,  is  sound  money?  There  is 
nothing  so  important  in  the  discussion  of  any  question  as  to 
have  a  clear  and  definite  understanding  as  to  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  words  employed  in  stating  the  question  in 
dispute.     Therefore,  we  ask  again, 

WHAT  IS  MEANT  BY  THE    WORDS,    SOUND  MONEY? 

The  word  "sound,"  in  its  adjective  sense,  has  many  defi- 
nitions. In  defining  this  word,  Webster  employs,  amongst 
other  terms,  the  following:  firm,  fast,  undisturbed.  Now, 
money  being  itself  the  standard  of  value,  the  money  that  is 
t\\Q  firmest,  in  other  words  that  which  is  the  soimdest,  is  the 
money  which  is  the  least  liable  to  fluctuations  in  value.  It 
is  almost  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  perils  to  either  public 
or  private  prosperity  arising  from  instability  in  the  value  or 
purchasing  power  of  money. 

To  illustrate,  let  us  suppose  that  to-day  money  were  so 
low  in  value  that  it  required  $5  to  purchase  a  bushel  of 
wheat,  $2.50  to  purchase  a  bushel  of  potatoes,  $5  a  day  to 
purchase  a  common  day's  labor,  and  a  corresponding  price 
to  purchase  any  of  the  various  productions,  either  of  the 
farm  or  the  factory.  Suppose  that,  owing  to  this  universal 
cheapness  of  money,  corresponding  prices  prevailed  through- 
out the  world.  And  suppose  that,  relying  upon  the  antici- 
pated perpetuity  of  this  low  value  of  money,  one  thousand 
young  farmers  in  Los  Angeles  County,  known  to  be  honest, 
industrious  and  enterprising  men,  should  borrow  a  thousand 
dollars  each,  at  2  per  cent  a  month  (for  other  things  being 


BIMETALLISM.  i  I 

equal,  the  more  abundant  and  the  less  valuable  the  money, 
the  higher,  as  a  rule,  is  the  rate  of  interest).  To  secure 
these  loans,  some  of  these  farmers  mortgage  their  farms 
and  others  give  personal  security,  perfectly  certain  that,  in 
view  of  the  present  great  abundance  and  low  valuation  of 
money,  they  will  be  able  in  twelve  months'  time  not  only  to 
pay  back  the  borrowed  money,  but  to  realize  a  handsome 
profit  besides.  With  this  borrowed  capital  these  young 
farmers  purchase  seed  wheat  at  $5  per  bushel,  potatoes  at 
$2.50,  seed  corn  at  $4.  per  bushel,  and  other  seeds,  as  well 
as  horses,  harness  and  farming  utensils  at  corresponding 
prices,  and  they  employ  farm  hands  at  $5  a  day,  all  of 
which  is  a  perfectly  safe  investment  if  the  money  is  only 
sound  and  continues  to  remain  fixed  at  its  present  valuation. 
Yes,  if  the  money  is  only  stable  or  somid — there  lies  the 
rub.  Well,  we  will  suppose  that  the  season  is  a  prosperous 
one,  and  all  these  young  farmers,  after  spending  their  thou- 
sand dollars  each,  raise  splendid  crops,  crops  which,  at  the 
prices  of  the  preceding  year,  would  enable  them  to  pay  their 
debts  and  clear  three  thousand  dollars  each.  But  suppose 
that  even  before  the  crop  is  harvestsd,  it  turns  out  that  the 
Rothschilds  of  England,  and  a  few  other  money  kings,  have 
cornered  most  of  the  money  of  the  world,  and  are  holding 
it  so  closely  in  hand,  and  it  has  become  so  scarce  out:idc 
of  their  immense  money  vaults,  that  the  $5  which  a  year 
ago  would  purchase  only  one  bushel  of  wheat  will  now  pur- 
chase ten,  and  the  $2.50  which  last  year  would  purchase 
but  one  bushel  of  potatoes  will  now  purchase  ten.  And 
suppose  (owing  to  the  same  cause)  a  similar  rise  in  the 
value  of  money,  and  consequently  a  similar  fall  in  the  price 
of  all  commodities,  prevails  throughout  the  world,  while 
these  thousand  dollar  debts  and  interest  thereon,  and  taxes, 
have  not  only  failed  to  fall  but  have  actually  risen  in  value, 
along  with  the  rise  of  the  money  that  is  locked  in  the  vaults 


12  BIMETALLISM. 

ol  rich  bankers.  In  view  of  this  condition  of  things,  would 
not  your  thousand  farmers  be  utterly  ruined  ?  Yea,  more, 
the  cause  being  almost  universal,  might  we  not  reasonably 
expect  the  ruin  to  be  equally  widespread  ?  And  would  not 
the  ruin  of  the  farmers  involve,  to  some  extent,  also  the 
ruin  of  the  manufacturing,  mechanical,  the  mercantile  and 
the  common  laboring  classes?  When  the  farmers  are 
plunged  in  debt  without  money,  and  their  farms  mortgaged 
for  all  they  are  worth  and  a  little  more,  how  can  they  buy 
the  merchant's  goods?  How  can  they  pay  carpenters  to 
build  houses,  or  how  can  they  hire  laborers  to  cultivate  their 
fields?  Now,  is  there  any  particular  mystery  about  all  this? 
Is  It  any  harder  to  understand  how  the  cornering  of  money 
In  the  hands  of  a  few  people  will  enable  those  few  people  to 
fix  upon  it  their  own  valuation,  and  thus  increase  Its  pur- 
chasing power,  than  it  is  to  understand  how  the  cornering 
of  the  great  bulk  of  the  world' s  wheat,  or  of  its  oil  wells,  in 
in  the  hands  of  a  few  men,  will  enable  those  few  men  to 
raise  the  price  of  wheat  or  of  oil  ?  The  whole  difficulty  Is 
solved  In  the  light  of  the  universally  accepted  maxim  laid 
down  by  political  economists,  that 

SUPPLY    AND    DEMAND    ARE    THE    GREAT    REGULATORS    OF 

PRICES, 

and  money,  locked  In  Iron  vaults.  Is  no  part  of  the  supply, 
any  more  than  money  locked  In  the  bowels  of  the  earth. 
Perhaps  It  may  be  said  that  the  case  supposed  Is  an  extreme 
one,  that  money  was  never  known  to  Increase  In  value  to 
the  extent  of  tenfold  In  a  single  year.  This  Is  admitted. 
We  have  Intentionally  magnified  both  the  cause  and  the 
resulting  evil.  In  order  to  render  It  plainly  perceptible  to  the 
dullest  Intellect.  But  we  propose  to  demonstrate  that 
while  there  has  not  as  yet  been  enough  of  the  world' s  money 
cornered,    In    one   year's    time,    to  Increase  Its  purchasing 


BIMETALLISM.  1 3 

power  tefifoldj  there  has  been  enough  of  it  cornered  since  1873 
to  increase  its  purchasing  power  nearly  twofold.  .  And  while 
the  direful  ruin  wrought  by  this  cornering  of  money  has  not 
been  so  sudden  nor  so  gigantic,  it  has  been  just  as  real  and 
as  certain,  just  as  inexorable,  and  almost  as  universal  as  in 
the  case  supposed.  "Let  facts  decide  whether  or  not  this  is 
true.  Here  is  a  table  purporting  to  be  compiled  and  pub- 
lished by  authority  of  the  United  States  treasury  depart- 
ment, August  6,  1893,  giving  in  tabulated  form  the  quantity 
of  gold  and  silver  produced  in  the  whole  world  during  one 
hundred  years'  time,  beginning  with  1792  and  ending  in 
1892.    (See  table  A,  appendix.) 

According  to  this  table,  the  whole  world,  during  that  one 
hundred  years,  yielded  as  follows: 

Gold,  $5,633,908,000;  and  silver,  $5,104,961,000, 

making  a  total  of  both  combined  of  $10,738,869,000.  Of 
course,  immense  quantities  of  that  gold  and  silver  have  been 
lost,  some  of  it  worn  away  by  abrasion,  some  lost  by  the 
sinking  of  vessels,  and  some  by  otherwise  escaping  from  the 
hands  of  man,  so  that  the  present  estimated  value  ot  both 
gold  and  silver  in  the  world,  including  the  world's  product 
both  prior  and  subsequent  to  1792,  is  estimated  as  amounting 
to $7, 7 20, 5 7 1, 347,  as  is  shown  by  the  figures  in  ''Coin's  Fi- 
nancial School, ' '  pp.  TOO  and  104.  But,  to  be  liberal,  let  us  sup- 
pose that  in  1 873  there  was  in  the  world,  and  subject  to  its  use, 
as  much  gold  and  silver  as  the  treasury  department  tells  us 
was  produced  in  the  one  hundred  years  from  1792  to  1892. 
This  would  give  us  in  1873,  in  the  whole  world  and  for  all 
uses,  gold,  $5,633,908,000,  and  silver,  $5,104,961,000.  If 
we  throw  off  the  odd  numbers,  and  count  only  the  thousands 
of  millions,  this  gives  us  in  1873,  $5,000,000,000  worth  of 
gold,  and  $5,000,000,000  of  silver. 


OF  TJiE 


14  BIMETALLISM. 

_  > 

From  the  earliest  dawn  of  civilization,  and  even  running 
back  into  the  dim  twilight  of  semi-barbarism,  silver  had  been 
used  as  primary  money  by  the  people  of  nearly  every  nation 
and  tongue  and  tribe  upon  the  face  of  the  earth. 

It  is  true  that  since  1816  England  had  refused  to  give  sil- 
ver a  legal  recognition  as  primary  money,  but,  nevertheless, 
the  English  people  have  always  stood  ready  to  exchange  a 
gold  sovereign  for  five  dollars  in  silver.  But  in  1873  there 
transpired  In  this  country  one  of  the  most  astounding  finan- 
cial occurrences,  immediately  followed,  throughout  the  vari- 
ous countries  of  Europe,  by  a  succession  of  the  fuost 
remarkable  financial  coincidences  recorded  hi  history. 

In  February,  1873,  the  American  congress  destroyed  sil- 
ver as  the  unit  of  value  for  American  money,  and  substituted 
a  gold  standard,  only  permitting  silver  to  be  used  as  a  legal 
tender  to  the  extent  of  five  dollars  in  any  one  payment.  This  is 
the  astounding  financial  occurrence  just  referred  to.  And  was 
it  not  an  astounding  financial  occurrence  ?  For  nearly  one 
hundred  years  silver  had  been  the  chief  and  almost  only  pri- 
mary money  in  use  amongst  the  great  mass  of  American  people. 
Ours  was  supposed  to  be  a  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  and  for  the  people,  and  yet,  without  anybody  in 
the  whole  country  ever  having  complained  of  silver  money, 
w  ithout  any  discussion  of  the  question,  either  by  the  people, 
the  press,  or  in  the  halls  of  legislation,  a  law  is  quietly, 
stealthily,  and  suddenly  passed,  destroying  the  primary 
money  value  of  every  silver  coin,  and  depreciating  the  mer- 
cantile value  of  every  dollar' s  worth  of  property  in  these 
United  States.  Not  only  was  the  passage  of  this  law  a  sur- 
prise to  the  whole  American  people,  but  it  seems  to  have 
been  an  equal  surprise  to  almost  every  member  of  either 
house  of  congress,  who  participated  in  its  enactment.  And 
what  is  still  more  astounding,  is  the  fact  that  such  a  law.  In 
view  of  all  its  direful  consequences,  should  have  remained  for 


1 


*  BIMETALLISM.  1 5 

more  than  twenty-two  years,  and  still  remains,  unrepealed.-'^ 
The  act  referred  to  is  a  very  lengthy  one,   and  is  headed 
by  this  most  deceptive  title,  to  wit: 

•'COINAGE,    WEIGHTS    AND    MEASURES."  \ 

But,  as  already  said,  this  most  astounding  occurrence  was 
speedily  followed  by  a  series  of  equally  astounding  coifict- 
deuces.  And  what  were  these  coincidences  ?  Why,  in  a 
few  months  (July,  1873)  after  the  passage  of  this  remarka- 
ble law,  destroying  bimetallism,  and  destroying  the  money 
value  of  silver  in  this  country,  the  German  Empire,  for  some 
unexplained  reason,  did  the  selfsame  thing.  Then  in  quick 
succession  (January,  1874)  followed  the  whole  Latin  Union, 
including  France,  Belgium,  Italy,  Switzerland,  and  Greece, 
all  striking  down  silver  and  making  gold  the  only  primary 
money. 

Now,  was  not  this  a  most  astounding  succession  of  finan- 
cial coincidences  ?  How  on  earth  did  it  happen  that,  in  so 
short  a  space  of  time — in  less  than  twelve  months — so  many 
nations,  speaking  so  many  different  languages,  subject  to  so 
many  different  forms  of  government,  whose  people  inherited 
from  the  earliest  antiquity  a  high  veneration  for  silver  money 
— a  money  that  was  in  the  pockets,  and  interwoven  with  the 
every-day  business  of  the  common  people  everywhere — how 
did  it  happen  that  in  all  these  various  countries,  suddenly, 
almost  at  the  same  instant,  silver  is  stricken  down  and  the 
gold  standard  is  set  up  ? 

Do  you  believe,  good  reader,  that  the  value  of  silver  was 
destroyed  to  please  the  masses,  whose  only  money  was  sil- 
ver, or  was  it  destroyed  to  please  those  millionaires  of 
Europe  and  America,  whose  only  money  and  only  god 
is  their  gold  ? 


*  In  1878  a  law  was  passed  making  silver  a  legal  tender  in  unlimited  amounts 
xcept  where  the  contract  calls  for  gold.  But  since  that  time  the  contract  nearly 
Iways  calls  for  gold,  so  that  the  law  is  virtually  a  dead  letter. 


l6  BIMETALLISM. 

Perhaps  the  question  may  be  asked, 

WHAT  INTEREST  DID  THE  OWNERS  OF  GOLD  HAVE  IN  STOP- 
PING THE  COINAGE  AND  USE  OF  .SILVER  MONEY  ? 

Is  it  difficult  to  see  that,  when  most  of  the  world's  silver 
coin,  constituting,  as  it  did,  nearly  one-half  the  world's 
money,  ceased  to  be  money,  it  would  necessarily  raise  the 
purchasing  power  and  increase  the  demand  for  gold,  that 
being  the  only  money  left?  Remember  that  supply  and 
demand  regulate  values.  When  nearly  half  the  money  in 
the  world  ceases  to  be  money,  is  not  the  supply  of  money 
diminished  to  that  extent  ?  And  does  not  this  raise  the 
purchasing  power  of  the  remainder  ?  This  would  be  the 
case,  even  were  there  no  corner  in  gold.  But  with  our  sil- 
ver money  destroyed,  and  the  great  bulk  of  our  gold  locked 
in  the  iron  vaults  of  a  gold  trust,  who  can  set  limits  to  the 
purchasing  power  that  may  be  imparted  to  that  gold? 
Under  these  conditions,  is  it  not  a  silly  mockery  to  talk 
about  gold  as  a  sound  money  in  the  sense  of  its  being  a 
stable  money? 

Until  the  demonetization  of  silver  by  the  United  States 
and  most  of  the  nations  of  Europe  in  1873-4,  silver,  as 
already  stated,  held  her  own,  even  in  England,  where  the 
law  did  not  recognize  it  as  primary  money.  But  from  that 
time  forth,  silver,  and  along  with  silver  nearly  every  other 
commodity,  began  to  fall  in  value,  or,  in  other  words,  from 
that  time  forth  the  value  or  the  purchasing  power  of  gold 
began  to  rise.  The  carefully  compiled  tables  of  Mr.  Sauer- 
beck show  that  even  in  England,  from  the  year  1854  to 
1872,  silver  was  never  lower  than  99.2  cents,  and  never 
higher  than  102  cents  per  ounce.      (See  appendix,  table  B.) 

This  was  a  variation  of  only  two  cents  in  nineteen  years 
immediately  preceding  the  demonetization  of  silver.  But 
how  was  it  during  the  next  nineteen  years  following  the 
demonetization  of  silver  ?     These  tables  also  show  that  after 


BIMETALLISM.  I7 

the  general  demonetization  of  silver,  it  fell  in  value  from 
97.4  in  1873  to  65.4  in  1892,  while  the  purchasing  power 
of  gold,  as  applied  to  the  staple  commodities,  increased  in 
almost  the  same  ratio  as  when  applied  to  silver.  (See  appen- 
dix, table  C.) 

For  example,  they  show  that  the  average  price  of  some 
forty-five  staple  commodities  which,  at  the  time  of  the  gen- 
eral demonetization  of  silver  it  required  $1.02  to  purchase, 
could,  in  1892,  under  the  operation  of  what  they  called  a 
''^  sound  moneys  system,  be  purchased  for  68  cents.  In  other 
words,  in  nineteen  years'  time  after  the  demonetization  of 
silver,  gold  so  advanced  in  value  that  68  cents  in  gold  was 
worth  as  much  and  would  purchase  as  much  in  the  market 
as  $1.02  would  purchase  at  the  time  silver  was  demonetized. 
And  is  this  our  sound  and  stable  money,  that  in  the  short 
space  of  nineteen  years'  'time  rises  like  a  kite  at  the  rate  of 
^4.  cents  on  the  dollar  f 

Mr.  Balfour,  the  late  chief  secretary  of  Ireland,  declares 
that,  under  the  operation  of  the  single  gold  standard,  the 
value  of  gold  has  gone  up  "no  less  than  from  30  to  35  per 
cent  in  some  fifteen  or  sixteen  years,"  and  he  adds,  "it  is  still 
steadily,  continuously,  and  indefinitely  increasing  in  value, 
so  that  no  man  living  can  prophesy  the  limits  to  which  the 
increase  may  not  extend. ' '  (See  Archbishop  Walsh's  pam- 
phlet, pp.  52-3.) 

It  is  claimed  by  the  gold  standard  people,  that  the  reason 
why  the  value  of  silver  has  of  late  sunk  so  far  below  that  of 
gold,  is  because  of  the  vast  increase  of  the  production  of 
silver  over  that  of  gold.  But  this  fallacy  is  completely  re- 
futed by'Mr.  Harvey  in  his  "Coin's  Handbook,"  at  page 
21,  where,  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Mulhall,  the  great  Lon- 
don statistician,  he  shows  by  statistics  that,  notwithstanding 
the  large  production  of  silver  in  the  United  States  of  recent 
years,  yet,  even  as  late  as   1890,   the  ratio  of  the  world's 

3 


l8  BIMETALLISM. 

silver,  as  compared  with  its  g^old,  was  only  a  little  more  than 
half  what  it  was  in  1848,  at  the  time  gold  was  discovered  in 
CaHfornia.  In  1848  there  were  in  the  world  31  tons  of  silver 
to  I  ton  of  gold,  whereas,  in  1890,  there  were  but  18  tons  of 
silver  to  i  of  gold.  Another  mianswerable  refutation  of 
this  assumption  is  found  in  the  fact  that  in  1873,  at  the  time 
silver  was  demonetized,  it  stood  at  a  premium  over  gold. 

Then,  again,  it  is  claimed  that  the  depreciation  in  the  value 
of  produce  is  not  owing  to  the  demonetization  of  silver,  the 
scarcity  of  money,  and  the  consequent  rise  in  gold,  but  that 
it  is  all  owing  to  the  over-production,  brought  about  by  im- 
proved machinery.  This,  too,  is  a  naked  assertion,  wholly 
unsupported  by  facts.  It  is  admitted  that,  during  the  last 
half  of  the  century,  there  have  been  great  improvements  in 
machinery,  but  these  improvements  did  not  begin  with  the 
demonetization  of  silver  in  1873,  but  long  before.  Yet  the 
development  of  the  world's  mines  of  gold  and  silver,  keep- 
ing pace  with  improvements  in  machinery,  maintained  the 
equilibrium  between  the  value  of  money  and  other  commod- 
ities until  1873.  But  the  facts  show  that  since  1873  the 
values  of  most  of  our  staple  productions  have  declined,  as 
silver  declined,  and  just  about  in  the  same  ratio. 

Mr.  Harvey  has  compiled  from  the  United  States  statis- 
tical abstract  for  September,  1893  (pp.  50  and  342),  a  table 
showing  the  average  prices  of  silver,  cotton,  and  wheat,  from 
1872  down  to  and  including  1893  (see  appendix,  table  D), 
which  shows  a  steady  decline,  as  follows  : 

Silver,  in  1872 $  i  32 

Silver,  ini 893 o  75 

Cotton,  in  1872 19  03 

Cotton,  in  1893 7  00 

Wheat,  in  1872 i  47 

Wheat,  in  1893 068 

These  are  simply  finger-boards  pointing  to  the  general 

decline  of  prices  of  American  products  from  year  to  year, 

ever  since  the  demonetization  of  silver  in  1873. 


BIMETALLISM.  I9 

WHY    CAPITALISTS    GENERALLY    OPPOSE    BIMETALLISM. 

Taking  human  nature  as  we  find  it,  there  is  nothing  sur- 
prising in  the  abstract  fact  that  those  whose  property  is  chiefly 
gold  should  struggle  to  maintain  and  enhance  its  value  by 
opposing  bimetallism.  But  that  the  owners  of  other  kinds 
of  property,  who  are  being  daily  impoverished  and  ruined 
by  this  constantly  enhancing  value  of  gold  money,  should 
oppose  bimetallism,  certainly  indicates  either  a  lack  of  infor- 
mation or  a  lack  of  intelligence,  and  in  most  cases  it  is 
doubtless  the  former.  In  truth,  this  money  question  is  so 
out  of  the  ordinary  run  of  political  issues  that  only  a  com- 
paratively few  people  have  as  yet  given  it  a  serious  thought. 
Most  men  seem  to  assume  that  it  matters  but  little  in  what 
w^ay  it  is  settled.  The  writer  must  confess  that  for  a  long 
time  he  was  himself  a  victim  of  this  same  kind  of  indiffer- 
ence, and  when  he  awoke  to  a  realizing  sense  of  the  great 
magnitude  and  vital  importance  of  the  question,  his  feelings 
were  much  akin  to  those  of  a  man  suddenly  aroused  from 
his  slumbers  by  the  crackling  flames  of  his  ow^n  house  on 
fire. 

We  sometimes  express  surprise  that  a  man  of  money, 
while  willing  to  loan  it  on  ample  security,  will  not  invest  it 
in  other  property  at  any  price,  however  low.  But  these 
men,  in  so  acting,  are  neither  criminals  nor  fools.  What  sen- 
sible man,  the  owner  of  either  money  or  any  other  kind  of 
property  that  is  constantly  on  the  rise  in  value,  is  willing  to 
exchange  it  for  other  property  that  is  constantly  depreciat- 
ing in  value  ?  Then,  again,  is  it  not  a  fact  that  a  general 
consciousness  that  money  is  thus  incessantly  growing  in 
value,  and  that  nearly  everything  else  is  proportionately 
shrinking  in  value,  naturally  and  necessarily  stimulates  a 
still  further  increased  demand  for  money,  and  correspond- 
ingly decreases  the  demand  for  other  kinds  of  property  ? 


20  BIMETALLISM. 

Thus  it  is  that  each  successful  rise  in  the  value  of  money 
simply  breeds  another  rise,  and  each  fall  in  the  value  of 
other  property  prepares  the  way  for  still  another  fall. 

Under  these  coaditions,  is  it  any  wonder  that  the  owners 
of  money  prefer  to  keep  it  locked  up  in  their  iron  safes, 
rather  than  invest  it  either  in  buying  or  improving  farms, 
fruit  ranches,  orcit}'lots?  In  other  words,  is  it  any  won- 
der that  the  industries  languish,  and  that  men  lie  idle  ?  It 
is  not,  as  is  sometimes  claimed,  the  agitation  of  the  silver 
question  that  raises  the  value  of  gold  and  depreciates  other 
commodities.  On  the  contrary,  let  the  agitation  of  the  sil- 
ver question  be  redoubled,  until  it  is  brought  home  to  every 
voter,  so  that  he  understands  it.  And  when  the  men  whose 
money  is  now  locked  in  iron  chests  become  convinced  that 
silver  is  to  be  restored  to  her  proper  place,  that  moment, 
without  waiting  for  congressional  action,  the  value  of  gold 
will  begin  to  descend,  while  other  property  will  rise  in  value, 
in  anticipation  of  a  redoubling  of  our  primary  money.  The 
money  speculators  hiow  this,  and  hence  their  desperate 
struggle  to  destroy  all  hope  of  bimetallism. 

UNCLE    SAM's    loss    OF   $8,000,000    IN   TEN    DAYS    BY   THE 
FLUCTUATION  IN  THE  VALUE  OF  HIS  "SOUND  MONEY." 

Most  overwhelming  evidence  of  the  rapid  fluctuations  in 
the  purchasing  power  of  gold  was  furnished  only  a  short 
time  ago,  in  the  course  of  a  transaction  In  which  Mr.  Car- 
lisle, our  distinguished  secretary  of  the  treasury,  was  himself 
one  of  the  chief  actors.  It  appears  that  our  government, 
being  sorely  pressed  for  money,  sold  to  some  English  bank- 
ers $50,000,000  worth  of  American  interest-bearing  bonds. 
These  bonds  were  sold  at  the  rate  of  $1.04  of  gold  for  each 
dollar  named  in  the  bonds.  And  according  to  public  report, 
which  we  have  never  heard  contradicted,  within  ten  days 
after  the  purchase  of  this  $50,000,000,   the  sellers  of  this 


ftlMltTALIJSM.  ^1 

gold  took  the  bonds  and  purchased  with  them  not  only  as 
much  gold  as  they  had  paid  for  them,  but  i6  per  cent  more, 
making  a  clear  profit  of  $8,000,000.*  Now,  if  Mr.  Carlisle 
purchased  this  gold  at  no  more  than  it  was  then  worth,  (and 
if  he  was  honest  he  must  have  beHeved  that  he  did),  there 
was  a  fall  in  the  value  of  gold  in  ten  days'  time  oi  just  16 
per  cent.  To  make  this  matter  perfectly  plain,  suppose 
that  instead  of  British  gold  it  had  been  Los  Angeles  oranges 
that  Mr.  Carlisle  was  purchasing.  And  suppose  that  on  the 
first  day  of  this  present  month  of  July  he  had  purchased  of 
Messrs.  Jacoby  Bros.  (Los  Angeles  fruit  dealers),  50,000,000 
boxes  of  oranges,  paying  for  them  in  government  bonds  at 
the  rate  of  one  dollar  a  box.  And  suppose  that  on  July  10 
Messrs.  Jacoby  Bros,  had  taken  these  same  bonds  and  pur- 
chased with  them  58,000,000  boxes  of  oranges,  equally  as 
good  as  those  they  had  sold — just  8,000,000  more  boxes 
than  they  had  paid  for  the  bonds — now,  would  not  everybody 
agree  that  during  these  ten  days  oranges  had  gone  down  16 
per  cent  in  value  ?  Possibly  it  may  be  said  that  the  reason 
Messrs.  Jacoby  Bros,  sold  their  oranges  for  so  big  a  price, 
and  made  so  fine  a  speculation,  was  that  when  they  sold  to 
Mr.  Carlisle  they  had  a  corner  on  oranges.  Jiist  so;  and 
are  you  quite  sure,  good  reader,  that  the  Rothschilds  did 
not  have  a  corner  on  gold  ?  And  is  this  what  you  call  *  'sound 
mo7iey,^^  Mr.  Carlisle?  A  money  that  drops  in  value  at  the 
rate  of  16  per  cent  in  ten  days'  time?  And  what  will  our 
gold  standard  men  say  in  answer  to  this  ?  It  will  not  do  to 
say  that  Mr.  Carlisle  did  not  k7iow  the  real  value  of  gold, 
and  paid  more  for  it  than  it  was  worth.  If  Mr.  Carlisle, 
who,  on  account  of  his  transcendant  financial  abilities,  was 
chosen  in  preference  to  every  other  man  in  America  to  take 

*  Since  the  above  was  in  type,  a  Mr.  Brayton  Ives,  President  of  the  Western 
National  Bank  of  New  York  City,  in  a  speech  delivered  at  Saratog:a,  July  lo,  is 
reported  to  have  said,  in  defense  of  this  U.  S.  Bond  sale,  that  the  syndicate  did  not 
clear  more  than  about  6^  per  cent  on  their  investment.  Even  this  would  make  a 
profit  of  some  $3,125,000.  (Author.) 


^1i  BIMETALLISM. 

charge  of  and  manage  the  finances  of  this  great  country;  If 
Mr.  CarHsle,  with  all  the  telegraphs  and  telephones  of  the 
world  at  his  command,  at  government  expense,  aided  and 
assisted  as  he  is  by  the  brightest  and  shrewdest  and  most  ex- 
perienced accountants,  bankers  and  financiers  as  his  subor- 
dinates, if,  with  all  these  aids  at  his  command,  he  cannot 
keep  pace  with  the  rapid  rise  and  fall  of  this  sound  money  of 
his,  how  in  the  name  of  high  heaven  can  he  expect  that  the 
great  masses  of  our  common  people  can  do  so  ? 

Was  it  not  in  order  to  enable  these  gold  syndicates  to 
make  just  such  speculations  as  this  that  in  1873-4  they 
throttled  the  legislative  bodies,  both  of  Europe  and  America, 
and,  either  by  falsehood  and  fraud,  or  by  the  corrupting 
power  of  gold,  demonetized,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  turned 
to  ashes  in  the  pockets  of  the  people  all  the  money  in  the 
world  except  that  in  which  they  themselves  were  speculat- 
ing. Did  they  not  simply  act  on  a  gigantic  scale  the  part 
of  a  villain  in  the  hotel  business,  who,  in  the  darkness  of  the 
night,  would  burn  down  a  rival  hotel  in  order  to  force  cus- 
tom into  his  own  ?  This  done,  the  next  thing  was  to  corner 
the  gold  and  control  the  money  market  of  the  world.  During 
the  last  twenty-two  years  they  have  reaped  many  agolden  har- 
vest as  the  fruit  ol  this  crime,  but  never  before  did  they  make 
so  big  a  haul  as  when  they  bought  tnese  bonds  from  Mr.  Car- 
lisle. Seeing  our  government  in  great  need  of  a  large  sum 
of  money  that  could  not  be  found  outside  of  their  vaults, 
they  simply  raised  the  price  of  their  gold  to  suit  themselves, 
and  made  the  government  pay  in  bonds,  as  we  have  seen, 
some  $8,000,000  too  much.  Thus  it  was  that  almost  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  in  the  hands  of  a  trust,  gold  went  up 
16  per  cent  in  its  purchasing  power;  and  after  the  govern- 
ment was  thus  fleeced  to  the  tune  of  $8,000,000,  it  dropped 
back  again  to  about  its  previous  value.  And  this,  Mr.  Car- 
lisle says,  is  *  'soimd  money ' '  HI 


niMKTAI.LISM.  23 

Perhaps  it  will  be  said  that  if  the  government  had  peddled 
its  bonds  around  among  the  various  banks  it  might  have 
got  gold  in  small  dribs  at  a  lower  price.  And  possibly  it 
might  for  the  once  have  done  so,  provided  the  big  gold  bugs 
did  not  give  the  wink  to  the  little  ones.  But  with  the  tele- 
graphs at  their  command,  how  easy  it  would  have  been  to 
draw  into  the  combine  almost  every  bank  that  could  buy  a 
bond,  and  then  divide  the  spoils.  The  truth  is  perfectly 
transparent  that  with  gold  as  the  world' s  only  money,  and 
with  the  great  bulk  of  this  gold  in  the  hands  of  a  few  men, 
these  few  men  can  regulate  its  purchasing  power,  sliding  it 
up  or  down  as  best  suits  their  own  selfish  purposes.  '  If  they 
cannot  do  this,  will  somebody  tell  us  why  not  ?  That  they 
have  done  it,  is  proof  positive  that,  under  like  conditions, 
they  can  do  it  again.  But  what  seems  most  amazing  is 
that  Mr.  Carlisle,  a  bright  man,  a  great  man,  and  an  honor- 
able man,  after  having  seen  our  government,  in  one  day's 
time,  by  one  single  transaction,  fleeced  to  the  tune  of 
$8,000,000  by  these  money  sharps,  by  means  of  what  he 
calls  a  sound  7no7iey  system,  cannot  see  that,  however  sound 
may  be  the  metal  that  makes  the  money,  his  boasted  system 
is  full  of  rottenness,  fraught  with  financial  ruin  to  the  coun- 
try, and  poverty,  hunger,  rags,  misery  and  death  to  our 
people. 

And  why  the  necessity  of  this  enormous  purchase  of  gold 
on  a  credit,  with  interest-bearing  bonds  ?  Is  it  not  perfectly 
apparent  that  it  was  a  necessity  born  of  that  infamous  law 
of  1873,  that  assassinated  our  silver  money  and  closed  our 
mints  against  the  further  coinage  of  silver  ? 

Blessed  by  Almighty  God  with  some  of  the  richest  silver 
mines  in  the  world,  with  the  mountains  of  Arizona,  Nevada, 
Colorado,  New  Mexico,  Utah,  Idaho,  Montana,  and  other 
states  and  territories,  literally  glistening  with  silver;  with 
millions  of  private  capital  invested  in  opening  up  and  devel- 


24  IMMKTAIJJSM. 

oping  these  mines;  with  thousands  of  hard-working-  miners 
digging  out  and  sending  annually  to  the  mints  tons  and  tons 
of  this  precious  metal,  ivhy  did  not  the  gover?i?iient  go  on 
and  make  all  the  money  it  wanted^  from  its  otvn  silver, 
thanking  none  bid  God  and  honest  American  industry  and 
eriterprise  for  the  blessed  boo7i  ? 

Why  close  the  mints  to  silver  at  the  very  time  when  a  sil- 
ver dollar  was  worth  more  than  a  gold  one,  and  compel 
many  mine  owners  to  shut  down  their  mines,  sacrificing 
millions  of  honestly  invested  capital,  and  turning  out  of 
employment  hundreds  and  thousands  of  hard-working,  hon- 
est laborers,  leaving  their  wives  and  children  to  cry  for 
bread,  and  forcing  themselves  to  either  starve  or  turn 
tramps  or  thieves  ?  Is  it  not  a  sad  and  humiliating  spec- 
tacle to  behold  our  American  congressmen,  the  honored  and 
trusted  servants  of  the  people,  in  base  betrayal  of  their  high 
trust,  crouching  and  cringing  at  the  feet  of  British  bankers, 
enacting  laws  at  /'/2<f/r  dictation,  to  fill  their  coffers  with  gold, 
to  the  utter  degradation  and  ruin  of  our  own  country  ?  Had 
congress  encouraged  and  fostered  our  silver  mining  industry 
instead  of  either  crippling  or  destroying  it  by  the  demoneti- 
zation of  silver,  and  had  our  mints  continued  to  coin  this 
precious  metal  into  money,  there  would  have  been  no  occa- 
sion for  either  our  national,  state,  or  municipal  governments, 
nor  for  our  railroad  or  gas  or  water  companies,  or  other  corpo- 
rations or  individuals,  to  borrow  money  from  England  to 
meet  their  obligations.  At  least  the  greater  part,  if  not  all  the 
money  they  needed  could  have  been  found  at  home,  and  the 
interest  upon  the  bonds  given  in  exchange  for  this  money 
would  have  remained  here  as  a  part  of  our  own  circulating 
medium,  instead  of  going  abroad  to  enrich  English  gold 
speculators  and  impoverish  America.  Mr.  W.  H.  Harvey 
states  (and  his  statement  seems  not  to  have  been  denied  by 
any  of  his  critics)  that  England  holds  American  interest-bear- 


BtMF.TATJJSM.  55 

inggold  bonds  of  various  kinds,  aggregating  at  least  $5,000, - 
000,000,  the  interest  on  which  amounts  to  some  $200,000,- 
000  a  year,  all  payable  in  gold  coin.  Just  think  of  this  ! ! 
The  producing  classes  of  America  (for  primarily  it  must  all 
come  out  of  them)  sending  to  England  $200,000,000  a 
year  in  gold  to  pay  interest.  Why,  the  tea  tax  that  the 
British  parliament  attempted  to  impose  on  our  revolutionary 
sires,  and  which  they  resisted  at  the  cannon's  mouth,  was  a 
mere  bagatelle  compared  with  this  enormous  and  Iniquitous 
burden  fastened  upon  our  people  by  an  American  congress. 
But  one  of  the  worst  features  of  this  almost  unbearable  bur- 
den is  that  it  is  daily  and  hourly  growing  heavier  and 
heavier,  and  no  man  can  tell  when  or  where  it  will  reach 
the  limit  of  its  growth.  If  it  is  true,  as  Mr.  Balfour  says, 
that  in  fifteen  years,  under  the  operation  of  anti-silver  laws, 
the  value  of  gold  rose  from  30  to  35  per  cent,  and  if  we  are 
going  to  perpetuate  these  laws,  how  can  we  expect  to  escape 
their  disastrous  consequences  ?  A  rise  in  the  value  of  gold  at 
the  rate  of  30  per  cent  in  fifteen  years  would  mean  a  rise  of  60 
per  cent  in  thirty  years — the  very  time  when  our  $50,000,000 
must  be  paid  to  the  Rothschilds.  Now,  don' t  forget  that  all 
the  time  that  gold  is  rising  in  value,  the  produce  that  must 
be  sold  to  pay  our  interest  depreciates  in  value  in  a  corres- 
ponding degree.  That  is  to  say,  while  our  burden  of  debt, 
by  reason  of  the  constant  rise  in  the  value  of  gold,  becomes 
daily  heavier  and  heavier,  our  ability  to  carry  that  burden 
becomes  day  by  day  less  and  less,  by  reason  of  the  con- 
stantly depreciating  values  of  those  commodities  we  must 
sell  to  meet  this  debt. 

After  taxing  our  producing  classes  to  the  tune  ot  about 
$1,000,000,000  a  year  to  run  the  general  government,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  several  state  and  county  and  municipal  gov- 
ernments, we  then  load  them  down  with  an  English  interest 
debt  of  $200,000,000  more,  and  that,  too,  growing  heavier 
and  heavier  year  by  year. 


26  BIMETAIJ.TFIM. 

These  are  some  of  the  fruits  we  have  ah'eady  gathered 
from  the  demonetization  of  silver.  But  if  this  sound  money 
law  of  1873  is  to  be  perpetuated,  a  far  darker  abyss  yawns 
before  us  in  the  future. 

THE  PRINCIPAL  OF  OUR  BONDS  MAY  HAVE  TO  BE  PAID. 

So  far,  we  have  chiefly  been  considering  the  enormous  and 
constantly  growing  burden  of  our  interest  debt.  But  one  of 
these  days  the  principal  will  fall  due,  and  then,  if  our  British 
bondmasters  find  it  to  their  interest  to  do  so,  they  will 
demand  payment,  and  payment  in  gold,  as  specified  in  the 
bonds.  By  the  time  our  recently  executed  government 
bonds  for  $50,000,000  falls  due,  namely  thirty  years  hence, 
even  adopting  Mr.  Balfour's  moderate  estimate,  these  bonds 
will  be  worth  at  least  $80,000,000.  That  is  to  say,  they 
will  require  the  sale  of  $80,000,000  worth  of  property 
to  redeem  them.  This  fact  may  help  to  explain  why  it  was 
that  the  second  purchaser  of  these  bonds  was  willing  to  pay 
$8,000,000  more  for  them  than  Mr.  Carlisle  had  sold  them 
for. 

With  less  than  $^^000,000,000  of  geld  in  the  wholt  world, 
American  debtors  to  English  bankers  must  redeem  $^,000,- 
000,000. 

When  the  principal  of  those  $5,000,000,000  of  American 
gold  bonds,  given  to  British  bankers  by  American  municipal 
and  other  corporations,  shall  mature,  where  will  the  gold 
come  from  to  redeem  these  bonds  if  payment  be  demanded 
of  all,  or  any  considerable  portion  of  them,  at  or  about  the 
same  time  ? 

Mr.  Harvey,  at  page  28  of  "Coin's  Handbook,"  quot- 
ing from  the  official  report  of  Mr.  Leech,  director  of  the 
United  States  mint  (see  appendix,  table  F),  shows  that, 
according  to  the  very  highest  estimate  made,  all  the  gold  in 
the  whole  woi'ld,  both  c^i"  ^ind  bullion,  circulating  as  money, 


BIMETALLISM.  2  7 

does  not  exceea  three  thousand  seven  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  milHons,  eighteen  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-nine 
dollars  ($3,727,018,869).  How,  then,  would  it  be  possible, 
should  payment  be  demanded,  to  raise  anything  near 
enough  gold  to  pay  off  the  principal  of  these  gold  bonds 
now  standing  as  a  lien  on  American  property?  While  it 
would  not  be  possible  to  raise  gold  enough  to  pay  off  these 
debts,  it  7vould  be  possible,  by  means  of  an  effort  made  for 
that  purpose,  to  create  such  a  demand  for  gold  that  its  value 
would  be  immediately  greatly  enhanced,  while  other  values 
would  necessarily  fall. 

HOWTHE$26, 000,000,000  AND  MORE  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONAL 
DEBTS  MAY  PROVE  OUR   RUIN  UNDER  THE  SO- 
CALLED  "sound  money"  system. 

Even  if  there  were  gold  enough  in  the  world  to  pay  all 
the  debts  due,  or  to  become  due,  from  Americans  to  British 
bankers,  still  there  is  no  possibility  of  our  getting  it  quite 
all  for  that  purpose.  Besides  the  thousands  of  millions  of 
dollars  of  gold  in  demand  for  the  payment  of  our  home  pri- 
vate debts,  as  well  as  foreign  private  debts,  we  learn  from 
the  United  States  census  reports  for  1890  that  there  are  for- 
eign national  debts  aggregating  twenty-six  thousand  six 
hundred  and  thirty-three  millions,  sixteen  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  eleven  dollars  ($26,633,016, 811).  (See  Com- 
pendium United  Census  Reports  for  1890,  vol.  2,   p.   313.) 

It  will  be  observed  that  these  foreign  national  debts  foot 
up  more  than  seven  times  as  much  as  all  the  gold  currency 
in  the  civilized  world;  so  that  if  these  foreign  national 
debtors  were  suddenly  called  upon  to  settle  their  dues,  and 
if  they  were  to  strip  the  whole  earth  of  its  gold  currency , 
they  could  not  pay  so  much  as  fifteen  cents  on  the  dollar. 
In  fact,  all  the  gold  and  silver  money  in  the  world  combined, 
aggregating  as  it  does  $7,547,590,215,  would  not  pay  one- 


2cS  IJIMETATJJSM. 

third  of  these  foreign  national  debts  alone,  leaving  out  of 
the  calculation  all  American  public  debts  and  the  private 
debts  of  all  mankind. 

And  yet  in  the  teeth  and  eyes  of  this  startling  condition 
of  things,  we  have  it  daily  dinned  into  our  ears  that  there 
is  so  much  gold  money  in  the  world  that  it  will  not  do  to 
remonetize  silver;  that  we  have  no  use  for  silver  money; 
that  it  would  inflate  the  prices  of  everything  and  ruin  the 
poor  people. 

To  instance  a  parallel  case,  instead  of  dollars  of  gold  we 
will  take  bushels  of  wheat.  We  will  suppose  that  a  number 
of  American  companies  have  sold  to  British  merchants,  for 
cash  in  advance,  five  thousand  millions  of  bushels  of  wheat. 
Certain  foreign  governments  have  also  sold  and  agreed  to 
deliver  to  these  merchants,  by  a  given  day,  twenty-six 
thousand  millions  of  bushels  of  wheat.  But,  on  investiga- 
tion, it  is  ascertained  that  all  the  wheat  in  the  whole  world 
will  not  amount  to  so  much  as  four  thousand  millions  of 
bushels, — an  amount  less  than  one-seventh  part  of  the 
wheat  so  purchased  and  paid  for.  Finding  it  impossible 
to  comply  with  their  contracts,  these  American  com- 
panies, and  also  those  foreign  governments  who  have 
undertaken  the  impossible  task  of  delivering  much  more 
wheat  than  was  in  existence,  deliver  a  part,  and  get  a  post- 
ponement of  the  time  fixed  for  the  delivery  of  the  balance 
by  paying  the  merchants,  periodically,  a  bonus  in  wheat 
corresponding  with  the  interest  paid  on  borrowed  money. 
But  the  efforts  to  procure  even  this  much  wheat,  coupled 
with  the  ordinary  requirements  for  consumption,  greatly 
enhances  the  value  of  wheat,  so  as  to  place  it  far  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  poor,  many  of  whom,  as  a  consequence, 
are  compelled  to  go  without  bread.  In  the  meantime, 
there  is  Indian  corn  in  the  country  amply  sufficient  to  sup- 
ply everybody   with   bread,  at   a  moderate  price,  but  we 


BIMETALLISM.  29 

are  met  with  a  law  closing  all  the  mills  against  Indian  corn, 
forbidding  it  to  be  ground  into  meal.  Thereupon  it  is  pro- 
posed to  repeal  that  law  and  set  the  mills  to  work,  preparing 
bread  for  our  starving  millions.  But  "No!  !"  thunder  forth 
the  heartless  speculators  in  wheat.  * '  Don' t  repeal  that  law. 
If  you  do  you  will  glut  the  market  with  cheap  corn  meal, 
a7id  ruin  the  poor P ' 

If  this  is  not  an  exact  parallel  of  the  position  taken  to-day 
by  those  speculators  in  gold  who  oppose  the  opening  of  our 
mints  to  the  coinage  of  silver,  it  would  be  interesting  to 
have  some  one  of  them  show  wherein  this  parallel  is 
defective. 

It  has  just  been  stated  that  the  aggregate  foreign  national 
indebtedness  amounted  in  1890  to  $26,633,016,811.  If  to 
this  we  add  $891,960,104,  the  then  national  debt  of  the 
United  States,  we  shall  have  an  aggregate  of  national  debts 
in  the  world  amounting  to  $27,524,976,915,  being  more 
than  all  the  gold  currency  in  the  world  by  an  excess  of 
$23,797,958,046. 

Perhaps  the  question  may  be  asked:  How  was  it  possible 
for  the  bankers  of  the  world  not  only  to  loan  out  to  the 
nations  of  the  earth  upwards  of  twenty-three  thousand 
millions  of  dollars  more  gold  than  there  was  on  earth,  and 
yet  have  plenty  of  gold  with  which  to  purchase  thousands 
of  millions  of  dollars  of  American  securities?  Ah  !  This 
is  a  most  important  question.  This  question  brings  us  face 
^  face  with  that  great  world-embracing  monster  that  holds 
in  its  unrelenting  grasp,  and  poisons  with  its  deadly  fangs, 
the  fortunes,  the  hopes  and  the  destinies  of  nations.  I 
mean  the  monster  of  compound  interest. 

Compound  Interest  is  a  Vampire  that  Never  Sleeps. 

Day  and  night,  winter  and  summer,  in  sunshine  and  in 
rain,  in  sickness  and  in  health,  heedless  alike  of  wars,  fam- 


30  BIMETALLISM. 

ines  and  pestilences,  it  coils  its  cruel  talons  around  the 
vitals,  thrusting  them  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  heart, 
silently  sucking  away  the  life's  blood  of  its  doomed  and 
ever  dying  victim. 

If  the  reader  would  realize  the  fearful  speed  with  which  a 
very  little  money  at  compound  interest  will  heap  up  an 
enormous  debt,  let  him  begin  with  a  debt  of  one  dollar, 
bearing  interest  at  the  moderate  rate  of  4  per  cent  per  annum, 
and  compounding  annually  for  two  hundred  and  forty  years. 
At  the  end  of  that  time  he  will  find  that  this  little  debt  of  one 
dollar  has  grown  to  the  enormous  proportions  of  a  debt  of 
more  than  ten  thousand  dollars.  Let  it  run  another  two 
hundred  and  forty  years,  at  the  same  rate  of  4  per  cent,  com- 
pounding annually  as  before,  and  this  one  dollar  debt  will 
have  grown  td  considerably  over  one  hundred  millions  of 
dollars.  This  being  the  case,  is  it  then  surprising  that 
while  there  are  less  than  four  thousand  millions  of  gold  coin 
in  the  world,  the  nations  of  the  earth  owe  to  money  lenders 
upwards  of  twenty-seven  thousand  millions  of  dollars  in  gold? 
It  is  simply  a  case  of  a  vast  accumulation  of  interest  and 
compound  interest,  with  the  payment  still  postponed  and  the 
compound  interest  still  growing  at  a  most  alarming  rate. 
And  who  can  tell  the  effect  that  these  unpaid  and  unpayable 
foreign  debts — to  say  nothing  of  our  own — may  even  in  the 
near  future  exert  over  the  value  of  gold  throughout  the 
world  ?  Suppose,  for  example,  that  the  Rothschilds,  bank- 
ers, finding  that  half  a  dozen  or  so  of  their  national  debtors 
had  permitted  their  compound  interest  to  pile  up  a  debt  of 
several  thousand  millions  of  dollars  each ;  and,  as  a  business 
proposition, — considering  it  unsafe  to  extend  further  credit 
to  either  of  these  debt-laden  nations, — suppose  that  these 
bankers  should  suddenly  demand  an  average  of  a  thousand 
millions  of  dollars  each  from  half  a  dozen  of  these  unfor- 
tunate debtors,  just  by  way  of  so  reducing  their  debts  as  to 


BIMETALLISM.  3I 

make  their  credit  good  for  the  remainder  a  litde  while 
longer.  Now  here  would  be  half  a  dozen  demands,  aggre- 
gating six  thousand  millions  of  dollars  in  gold,  when,  in  fact, 
there  are  less  than  four  thousand  millions  in  existence.  Of 
course,  it  would  be  impossible  for  all  these  debtor  nations  to 
comply  wath  the  demand,  but  some  of  them,  and  perhaps  all, 
would  make  a  most  desperate  effort  to  pay.  And  would 
not  this  effort  result  in  so  extraox^dinary  a  demand  for  gold 
as  to  enhance  its  purchasing  power  beyond  all  precedent  ? 
And  who  will  undertake  to  say  that  the  case  supposed  is 
either  an  impossible  or  an  improbable  one  ? 

As  time  rolls  on  and  compound  interest  piles  up  these 
enormous  debts,  until  they  surpass,  as  they  soon  will,  forty- 
fold  all  the  gold  in  the  world,  placing  payment  still  more 
and  more  beyond  the  limits  of  possibility,  who  could  won- 
der if  these  money  kings,  after  first  collecting  and  locking 
in  their  vaults  every  a\'ailable  gold  dollar  in  the  world, 
should  then  turn  round  and  demand  that  the  nations  either 
pay  this  compound  interest  debt  or  else  surrender  to  them 
the  earth,  with  all  its  appurtenences  ?  And  with  the  world's 
coin  at  their  command,  and  the  rest  of  the  world  without 
money,  who  can  say  that  these  bankers  could  not  hire  one- 
half  of  the  nations  to  enforce  their  claim  at  the  cannon's 
mouth  against  the  other  half? 

Perhaps  it  will  be  said  that  the  amount  of  gold  in  the 
world,  although  insignificant  in  amount  when  compared 
with  the  amount  of  the  national  indebtedness  referred  to, 
might  still  be  sufficient  to  liquidate  all  these  debts,  for  the 
reason  that  the  same  money  passing  from  hand  to  hand 
often  pays  many  debts,  each  of  which  is  equal  in  amount  to 
the  money  paid.  Thus,  for  example,  A  owes  B  $ioo; 
B  owes  C  $100;  C  owes  D  $ioo  ;  D  owes  E  $ioo,  and  so 
on  to  the  end  of  the  alphabet.  In  that  case,  just  as  soon 
as  A  can  raise  $ioo  he  pays  it  to  B,  whereupon   B  takes 


32  BIMETALLISM. 

the  same  hundred  dollars  and  pays  it  to  C  and  C  pays  it 
to  D,  who  in  turn  pays  it  to  E,  etc.  So  that  this  $ioo 
serves  the  purpose  of  paying  off  several  hundred  dollars  of 
indebtedness. 

This  is  a  very  common  occurrence  amongst  individuals, 
but  the  case  is  quite  diiferent  with  the  debts  contracted  by 
nations.  It  is  rarely  the  case  that  one  nation  loans  money 
to  another;  but,  as  a  general  rule,  nations  get  their  money 
from  wealthy  bankers,  just  as  Mr.  Carlisle  did  in  the  case  of 
the  fifty  millions.  And  when  these  bankers  collect  either 
their  interest  or  principal,  they  don't  pay  debts  with  it, 
because,  as  a  rule,  they  have  none  to  pay;  but  they  loan  it 
out  again  for  more  interest  and  compound  interest. 

Suppose  that  our  American  railroad  companies,  gas  com- 
panies, water  companies,  electric  companies,  etc.,  whose 
indebtedness  to  English  bankers  aggregates,  as  we  have 
seen,  some  five  thousand  millions  of  dollars,  should  manage 
to  pay  off  a  good  part  of  this  indebtedness;  is  it  at  all  prob- 
able that  any  part  of  it  would  come  back  to  pay  American 
creditors?  No,  not  a  cent  of  it  would  find  its  way  back 
here,  unless  it  should  be  in  the  way  of  trade  or  as  another 
loan. 

But  the  great  danger  ahead  of  us  is,  that  one  of  these 
days,  in  view  of  the  growing  impossibility  of  our  American 
debtors  ever  being  able  to  pay  their  foreign  creditors  the 
amount  of  gold  they  have  contracted  to  pay,  they  will 
either  voluntarily  or  involuntarily  surrender  their  immense 
properties  into  the  hands  of  those  creditors,  thereby  estab- 
lishing a  widespread  foreign  ownership  in  American  soil 
utterly  incompatible  with  American  liberty. 

THE  VANGUARD  OF  ENGLISH  LANDLORDISM  ALREADY 

HERE. 

Is  it  not  a  fact  that  English  landlordism,  which  for  so 


BIMETALLISM.  33 

many  centuries  has  impoverished  and  ruined  Ireland,  has 
already  begun  to  fasten  its  detestable  fangs  upon  the  heart 
of  America  ?  According  to  Mr.  Harvey' s  carefully  gathered 
statistics,  not  only  have  foreign  English  syndicates  and 
Englishmen  of  wealth  becom_e  the  owners  of  controlling 
interests  in  many  metropolitan  newspapers  in  this  country, 
but  they  * '  own  our  breweries ' '  and  a  large  share  of  ^ '  our 
insurance  and  investment  companies."  And,  worse  yet, 
immense  bodies  of  our  best  lands  are  rapidly  passing  into 
the  hands  of  foreign  English  landlords.  Mr.  Harvey  gives 
many  names  of  foreign  English  subjects,  each  of  whom 
owns  a  vast  landed  estate  in  America,  aggregating  some 
20,000,000  of  acres  in  tracts,  ranging  in  size  from  thirty- 
five  thousand  up  to  three  millions  of  acres  each.  He  also 
quotes  from  the  United  States  census  reports,  figures 
showing  that  in  the  New  England  states  the  number  of 
families  owning  their  own  land  had,  in  ten  years — from 
1880  to  1890 — fallen  off  to  the  tune  of  24,117,  while  the 
increase  in  the  number  of  tenants  was  correspondingly 
large,  the  percentage  of  tenants  being  in  1890  double  what 
it  was  in  1880. 

Now  if  this  gold  trust  law  of  1873  is  to  be  perpetuated, 
if  gold  is  to  continue  our  only  primary  money,  and  if  we 
can  only  get  that  money  by  bonding  our  property  and  the 
hard  earnings  of  our  people  to  British  syndicates  upon  just 
such  terms  as  they  choose  to  dictate,  how  long  will  it  be 
until  America  finds  herself  just  as  completely  in  the  power 
and  at  the  mercy  of  England  as  Ireland  has  been  for  the 
last  seven  hundred  years  ?  May  God  grant  that  the  his- 
torian may  never  have  to  record  the  fact  that  English  gold 
had  conquered  the  degenerate  sons  of  those  noble  sires 
whom  the  combined  armijes  of  Great  Britain  could  not 
subdue. 


34  BIMETALLISM,     . 

BUT  WHAT    IS  TO    BE    DONE    TO    REMEDY    OUR    PRESENT 

FINANCIAL  EVILS    AND  TO   PROTECT   OURSELVES 

AGAINST   IMPENDING   DISASTER? 

Our  people  must  arouse  themselves  to  a  realizing  sense 
of  this  great  evil  before  it  is  too  late  and  demand  a  repeal 
of  the  iniquitous  law  that  has  done  the  damage.  Place 
silver,  the  traditional  money  of  the  people,  back  again  where 
it  belongs.  Make  the  silver  dollar  again  the  unit  of  value. 
And  without  attempting  to  disturb  existing  contracts,  make 
all  future  contracts  payable  either  in  gold  or  silver  at  the 
option  of  the  debtor.  In  this  way  we  would  again  put  our 
mints  in  motion,  re-open  our  silver  mines,  vastly  increase 
our  circulating  medium,  start  anew  our  now  silent  fac- 
tories, revivify  commerce,  inspire  with  new  life  and  hope 
and  energy  our  now  disheartened  and  despondent  farmers, 
fruit-growers,  mechanics,  merchants,  shop-keepers,  art- 
isans and  professional  men  ;  stop  our  strikes,  and  give  pro- 
fitable employment  to  our  tramps  and  industrial  armies,  and 
thus  bring  peace  and  plenty  and  happiness  to  hundreds  of 
thousands,  yea,  millions,  of  our  poor  countrymen  who  to- 
day are  living  by  beggary,  or  starving  through  shame. 

WOULD   THIS    BE    REPUDIATION? 

But  we  are  told  by  our  so-called  sound  money  men  that 
this  would  be  repudiation,  and  bring  dishonor  on  the  coun- 
try. This  is  not  true.  Those  who  hold  gold  notes  and 
gold  bonds  would  thus  be  paid,  according  to  their  contracts, 
in  gold  of  the  same  weight  as  called  for,  if  they  say  so. 

While  this  is  the  writer's  opinion  as  to  the  easiest  and 
most  satisfactory  way  of  settling  the  question  as  to  past  con- 
tracts, yet  he  is  not  prepared  to  condemn  as  dishonest  the 
views  of  those  who  believe  it  right  to  make  all  contracts, 
old  and  new,  payable  in  either  gold  or  silver  at  the  option 
of  the  debtor.     In  fact,  Professor  Laughlin,  an  out-and-out 


BIMETALLISM.  35 

gold  standard  man  (who  recendy  discussed  the  bimetallic 
question  with  Mr.  Harvey,  of  Chicago),  in  his  late  work  on 
political  economy,  at  page  76,  proclaims  a  principle  sub- 
stantially in  accord  with  the  last-named  position.     He  says : — 

**A  long  contracL,like  a  government  or  railway  bond,  ought  not 
to  be  settled  bv/paying  back  the  amount  of  gold  or  silver  bor- 
rowed, but  bv^ivingthe  lender  a  sum  which  would,  at  the  time  of 
payment,  jcKirchase  the  amount  of  commodities  for  which  the 
mone^j-iidaned  could  have  been  exchanged  at  the  time  it  passed 
frf^nfthe  lender  to  the  borrower." 

If  this  be  a  correct  principle,  where  would  be  the  injustice 
in  a  law  authorizing  the  payment  of  an  old  debt  in  depreci- 
ated coin,  provided  that  such  depreciation  did  not  so  reduce 
the  value  of  the  coin  as  to  make  its  purchasing  power  less 
than  it  was  when  the  contract  was  made? 

At  all  events,  if  it  was  right  in  1873,  in  the  interest  of 
gold  speculators,  to  take  from  silver  its  money  value,  it  can- 
not be  wrong  now,  in  the  interest  of  all  the  balance  of  man- 
kind, to  restore  what  was  then  taken  away. 

The  writer's  chief  reason  for  proposing  to  settle  old  debts 
according  to  their  express  terms,  is  because  he  believes  that 
this  plan  w^ould  hasten  legislation  on  this  most  important 
question,  and  because  of  his  thorough  conviction  that,  when 
silver  is  remonetized,  gold  will  so  rapidly  depreciate  and  sil- 
ver so  rapidly  rise  in  value,  that  in  a  short  time  it  will  make 
very  litde  difference  to  either  debtor  or  creditor  in  which  kind 
of  coin  the  debt  is  paid.  Still  another  reason  for  preferring  the 
writer' s  proposed  plan,  is  to  avoid  all  danger  of  having  the 
courts  declare  unconstitutional,  as  impairing  the  obligation 
of  contracts,  a  law  allowing  the  debtor  to  pay  in  silver  a 
debt  stipulated  to  be  paid  in  gold,  however  just  such  a  law 
might  be. 

Judging  from  the  signs  of  the  times,  there  can  be  but 
litde  doubt  but  that  the  remonetization  of  silver  by  the 


36  BIMETALLISM. 

United  States  will  be  speedily  followed  by  a  demand  coming 
from  the  great  mass  of  the  people  of  Europe  calling  for  similar 
action,  which  their  respective  governments  will  not  dare  to 
disregard.     Therefore  we  should  hasten  our  work  at  home. 

The  moment  we  stop  these  gold  note  and  gold  bond  con- 
tracts, and  for  all  future  contracts  make  a  payment  in  silver 
equal  to  a  payment  in  gold,  that  moment  we  will  thereby 
almost  double  our  supply  of  primary  money;  and  the  value 
of  gold  and  silver,  being  by  law  linked  in  one  common 
standard,  just  in  proportion  as  the  silver  dollar  rises  In  value, 
in  the  same  proportion  must  the  gold  dollar  come  down 
until  it  reaches  that  common  standard.  With  gold  and  sil- 
ver money  once  more  on  an  equal  footing,  and  our  money 
supply  thus  nearly  doubled,  it  will  not  cost  near  so  much 
labor  nor  near  so  much  produce  as  it  now  does  to  purchase 
the  gold  with  which  to  pay  our  outstanding  gold  debts. 
And  while  the  debtors'  facilities  for  paying  these  old  debts 
in  gold  will  be  vastly  increased,  the  creditors'  desire  to  have 
the  gold  will  be  greatly  diminished,  for  why  should  they  be 
so  very  anxious  about  having  the  gold,  when  the  silver,  dol- 
lar for  dollar,  is  of  equal  value? 

Somebody  may  say,  ''This  may  do  very  well  for  the  pay- 
ment of  our  home  debts,  but  we  cannot  pay  our  foreign  gold 
debts  with  silver. ' ' 

But  even  the  foreign  banker,  holding  an  American  gold 
bond,  when  he  finds  that  his  patron,  the  English  merchant, 
purchasing  American  produce,  can  use  American  silver  dollars 
with  the  same  purchasing  power  as  if  they  were  gold,  will 
not  be  near  so  imperious  in  his  demand  as  he  is  at  present 
for  gold.  The  only  way  we  can  ever  get  the  balance  of  the 
world  to  respect  our  silver  money  is  to  respect  it  ourselves. 

CAN  LEGISLATION  INCREASE  THE  VALUE  OF  SILVER? 

But  we  are  told  by  our  gold  standard  people  that  silver  is 


BIMETALLISM.  37 

only  worth  just  so  much  anyhow,  and  that  we  cannot  Increase 
its  value  by  legislation.  Now  let  us  see  if  we  cannot.  What 
is  the  meaning"  of  the  word,  value  f  This  word  has  different 
significations.  Webster,  in  defining  the  word  value  in  one 
of  its  significations  says  it  is  "  the  property  or  properties  of 
a  thing  which  render  it  useful,  or  the  degree  of  such  prop- 
erties,"  and  immediately  he  proceeds  to  define  the  same 
word  as  meaning  worth,  titilityj  importance.  Now  we  all 
agree  that  so  far  as  regards  the  intrinsic  and  natural  proper- 
ties of  silver,  which  render  it  fit  for  money,  we  cannot  change 
them  by  legislation  any  more  than  we  can  change  copper 
into  gold  by  legislation.  But  how  about  the  other  definition, 
which  says  that  the  word  value  also  means  7vorth,  utility, 
importa7icef  Can  we  not  change  the  utility  of  silver  by 
legislation?  Did  not  the  legislation  of  1873,  by  closing  our 
mints  to  silver,  by  destroying  the  silver  dollar  as  the  unit  of 
value  and  substituting  the  gold  standard  in  its  place,  virtually 
destroy  the  utility,  in  other  words  the  value,  of  silver  as 
primary  money?  It  was  still  a  useful,  a  valuable  metal  for 
making  plates  and  spoons,  but  utterly  valueless  as  primary 
money.  Is  it  not,  then,  the  merest  nonsense  to  say  that  we 
cannot  change  the  money  value  of  silver  by  legislation  ?  Is 
it  not  a  fact  that  before  the  demonetization  of  silver  in  1873, 
silver  stood  at  a  premium  over  gold,  so  that  a  dollar  in  silver 
was  actually  worth  more  than  a  dollar  in  gold  ?  And  at  that 
time  the  value  of  silver  bullion,  on  account  of  its  utility  for 
making  silver  money,  kept  pace  with  the  value  of  silver 
dollars,  and  commanded  as  big  a  price  In  proportion  to  their 
legal  ratio  of  values  as  did  gold  bullion.  In  other  words, 
the  371 X  grains  of  uncoined  silver  required  to  make  a  silver 
dollar,  were  worth  as  much,  and  a  little  more,  than  the  23 
and  a  fraction  grains  of  uncoined  gold  that  It  required  to 
make  a  gold  dollar.  Such  was  the  relative  value  of  gold 
and  silver  coin  and  gold  and  silver  bullion,   as  they  stood 


38  BIMETALLISM. 

prior  to  the  demonetization  of  silver  in  1873.  And  this, 
approximately,  had  been  their  relative  value  ever  since  the 
foundation  of  this  government.  But  what  has  been  their  rela- 
tive value  since  1873?  Why,  as  we  have  seen,  silver  has 
been  going  down,  and  down,  and  down,  and  gold  has  been 
going  up,  and  up,  and  up,  until  to-day  it  takes  about  two  dol- 
lars' worth  of  silver  bullion  to  purchase  one  dollar' s  worth  of 
gold.  Nor  will  any  sane  man  say  that  legislation  has  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  this  changed  condition  in  the  relative  values 
of  these  two  metals.  Don't  forget  that  Webster  says  the 
' '  importance ' '  and  ' '  utility  "  of  a  thing  constitute  the 
value  of  that  thing.  Whilst  silver  was  recognized  by  law  as 
primary  money,  and  whilst  the  mints  of  the  world  were 
making  it  into  money,  it  was  estimated  that  about  three- 
fourths  of  the  world's  silver  was  being  used  for  primary 
money,  and  the  other  fourth  for  the  arts  and  manufactories. 
So  that  when,  by  legislation,  we  destroyed  the  use  of  silver 
as  primary  money,  is  it  not  so  plain  that  an  oyster  ought  to 
see  it,  that  we  thereby  destroyed  the  money  utility  (or  the 
value,  if  you  please)  of  just  so  much  of  our  silver?  Silver 
having  by  means  of  legislation  lost  its  value  as  a  money 
metal,  was  bereft  of  three-fourths  of  the  demand  that  had 
previously  existed  for  its  use;  and  three-fourths  of  this  de- 
mand having  been  taken  away,  it  was  certainly  not  surpris- 
ing that  its  market  value  dropped  down.  Then  again,  the 
very  law  that  thus  destroyed  the  money  value  of  silver^  and 
incidentally  depreciated  its  value  for  other  purposes,  vastly 
increased  the  demand  for  gold  by  making  that  the  only  pri- 
mary money,  and  thus  concentrating  upon  it  a  demand  which 
had  previously  been  about  equally  divided  between  both  gold 
and  silver.  Under  these  conditions,  how  would  it  have  been 
possible  for  silver  to  maintain  its  original  commercial  value, 
whatever  might  have  been  the  intrinsic  properties  of  the 
metal  ?     If  legislation  cannot  impart  value  to  a  thing,  why 


BIMETALLISM.  39 

Is  It  that  a  genuine  ten-dollar  treasury  note — mere  token 
money — is  more  valuable  than  a  counterfeit  one  of  the  same 
denomination  ?  What  is  the  difference,  except  that  one  has 
the  sanction  of  the  law  and  the  other  has  not?  Neither  one 
has  any  intrinsic  value  worth  naming-,  independent  of  the 
law;  and  yet,  by  reason  of  the  law,  one  is  worth  ten  dollars 
and  the  other  is  not  worth  a  cent.  This  is  not  intended  as 
an  argument  in  favor  of  making  paper  a  primary  money, 
which  might  lead  to  an  unwholesome  financial  inflation  such 
as  gold  and  silver  can  never  produce,  but  the  object  is  sim- 
ply to  refute  a  false  notion  that  legislation  cannot  affect  the 
value  of  things. 

Again,  let  us  take  two  silver  dollars,  one  an  American 
dollar  and  the  other  a  Mexican  dollar,  and  the  actual 
amount  of  silver  in  the  Mexican  dollar  is  a  little  more  than 
that  in  the  American  dollar,  and  yet  the  American  dollar  Is 
worth  twice  as  much  as  the  Mexican.  If  legislation  has 
nothing  to  do  with  this  difference  in  value,  will  some  mono- 
metallist  tell  us  what  is  the  cause? 

But  here  is  another  proof  of  the  fallacy  of  the  above 
assumption.  In  every  American  gold  coin  there  is  one 
tenth  part  of  alloy,  consisting  of  silver  and  copper.  Now, 
has  not  the  alloy  contained  in  each  of  these  coins  precisely 
the  same  current  money  value  as  the  gold  with  which  It  Is 
combined  ?  Is  it  possible  for  these  nine-tenths  of  gold  con- 
tained in  a  coin  to  rise  in  value  without  a  corresponding  rise 
in  the  value  of  the  alloy,  or  can  the  one  fall  in  value  without 
bringing  the  other  down  with  it  ?  What  is  it,  except  the 
law,  that  imparts  to  these  different  metals,  so  unequal  in 
their  intrinsic  value,  exactly  the  same  money  value  ?  Now 
like  unto  this  is  the  unity  in  value  that  the  law  should  estab- 
lish between  gold  and  silver  money.  Not  that  the  writer 
would  in  this  case  make  a  given  number  of  grains  of  silver 
equal  in  value  to  the  same  number  of  grains  of  gold,   as  in 


40  BIMETALLISM. 

the  case  of  the  alloy  placed  in  a  gold  coin,  but,  after  estab- 
lishing a  fair  ratio  of  value  between  gold  and  silver,  these 
values  should,  by  means  of  the  law,  be  as  indissolubly  united 
in  one  standard  of  value  as  are  the  gold  and  the  alloy  that 
constitute  but  one  coin.  These  gold  and  silver  values  should, 
as  of  old,  be  so  completely  united  that  it  would  be  impos- 
sible for  the  one  to  rise  or  fall  (at  least  to  any  extent)  with- 
out the  rise  or  fall  of  the  other.  Instead  of  calling  this 
bimetallism,  it  seems  to  me  that  a  more  appropriate  name 
would  be  ujiited  metallism.  In  this  way,  our  primary  money 
being  nearly  doubled  in  quantity,  and  our  silver  money  gen- 
erally distributed  amongst  the  people,  and  being  in  the 
pockets  and  purses  of  nearly  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
in  the  world,  the  possibility  of  cornering  it  would  be  out  of 
the  question. 

AN   OUTRAGE   TO   RAISE   THE   VALUE   OF   SILVER. 

But  our  monometallic  friends  say,  * '  It  would  be  an  out- 
rage to  take  371/4^  grains  of  silver,  that  is  now  only  worth 
fifty  cents  in  gold,  and  after  coining  it  into  a  dollar,  give  it 
back  to  the  owner  with  a  value  equal  to  loo  cents.  Why," 
they  say,  "it  would  actually  make  some  of  the  silver  miners 
rich  ! ' '  Perhaps  it  would,  but  it  is  very  questionable 
whether,  as  a  rule,  it  would  make  good  one-half  of  the 
losses  they  have  sustained,  by  reason  of  the  grievous  wrong 
perpetrated  upon  them,  by  means  of  the  act  of  1873.  The 
effect  of  that  act — as  the  whole  world  knows — was  virtually  to 
confiscate  the  property  of  multitudes  of  miners,  whose  bus- 
iness was  thereby  broken  up,  their  investments  chiefly  or 
totally  lost,  themselves  and  families  in  many  instances 
driven  to  poverty,  and  their  prospects  hopelessly  ruined 
fo"  life.  Is  not  this,  punishment  enough  for  American 
citizens,  whose  only  crime  consisted  in  having,  in  the  face 
of  privations  and  dangers  unspeakable,  pioneered  the  way, 


BIMETALLISM.  4I 

and  carried  the  banner  of  civilization  into  the  heart  of  a 
wild  and  savage  wilderness,  and  there,  by  their  labor  and 
capital,  opened  up,  for  their  own  and  their  country's  benefit, 
untold  millions  of  the  precious  metals  hitherto  unknown  to 
the  world  ?  Have  not  these  miners  been  pursued  and  per- 
secuted enough  already,  without  perpetuating  the  wrong  to 
the  end  of  time  ?  While  it  may  be  true  that  some  of  these 
miners  still  remain  wealthy,  in  spite  of  the  unjust  losses 
they  have  suffered,  still  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  we  should 
not  render  even  to  these,  a  little  tardy  justice  in  their  old 
days ;  especially  when  by  so  doing  we  benefit  the  whole  world. 
Our  gold  standard  people  absolutely  curl  their  lips  and 
turn  up  their  aristocratic  noses  with  scorn  at  the  idea  of 
lifting  silver  from  her  present  depreciated,  helpless,  arid 
degraded  position,  and  placing  her  back  again  side  by  side 
with  gold,  reuniting  the  two  inseparably,  as  in  the  Jioly 
bonds  of  wedlock.  But  it  certainly  comes  with  a  very  bad 
grace  from  those  who  have  aided  and  abetted  or  sanctioned 
the  cruel  and  unjust  degradation  of  silver,  to  now  turn 
round  and  plead  that  degradation  (the  diabolical  work  of 
their  own  hands),  as  a  reason  why  silver  should  not  now  be 
restored  to  her  rightful  office.  Such  would  be  the  logic  of 
the  wretch,  who,  after  having  beaten  his  wife  until  half  dead, 
had  turned  her  out-of-doors  and  then  refused  her  re-admit- 
tance to  her  own  home,  because  of  the  horrid  bruises  and 
disfiguration  he  himself  had  given  her.  What  would  honest 
men  think  of  such  a  fellow  ? 

WOULD    INFLATE    THE    MONEY  MARKET. 

Another  of  the  arguments  used  by  some  of  the  mono- 
metallists  against  the  remonetizing  of  silver  is,  that  there 
would  be  so  much  money  in  circulation,  and  the  prices  of 
everything  would  become  so  inflated  that  a  wild  spirit  of 
speculation  would  seize  upon  our  people,   to    be  followed 


42  BIMETALLISM. 

some  time  or  other  by  a  collapse,  which  they  say  would  be 
perfectly  dreadful.  This  is  the  doctrine  as  expounded  by 
Mr.  Edward  Wisner  in  his  "Cash  vs.  Coin."  At  page  78 
Mr.  Wisner  among  other  things  says  : — 

'*  It  is  popularly  supposed  that  the  people  to  be  most  injured  by 
a  change  of  standard  would  be  the  bankers  and  Wall  Street  spec- 
ulators." 

And  then  he  adds : — 

"A  greater  error  never  gained  currency.  The  Wall  Street  spec- 
ulators are  debtors,  as  a  rule,  and  the  violent  fluctuations  which  a 
change  of  standard  would  produce,  would  be  the  greatest  picnic 
they  have  had  for  years," 

If  the  remonetization  of  silver  would  be  the  occasion  of 
such  a  jolly  picnic  to  these  Wall  Street  bankers,  how  is  it 
that  they  never  lend  us  a  helping  hand  ?  Most  unquestion- 
ably they  are  not  fond  of  picnics.  But  the  substance  of  Mr. 
Wisner' s  position  is,  that  the  restoration  of  silver  money 
would  lead  to  a  flooding  of  the  country  with  too  much 
money.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Carlisle  is  alarmed  for  fear 
that  the  restoration  of  silver  money  would  drive  all  the 
gold  out  of  the  country,  and  produce  a  stringency  in  our 
money  market,  for  the  reason  that  gold  dollars  would  be 
more  valuable  than  silver  dollars  (see  his  Memphis  speech). 
It  would  seem  that  a  repetition  of  the  remedy  applied  by 
the  government  in  1834  for  a  similar  financial  disease, 
would — as  suggested  by  Mr.  Harvey — serve  as  a  satisfac- 
tory cure  for  this  malady.  Prior  to  1834,  the  legally  estab- 
lished ratio  between  gold  and  silver  was  15  to  i.  But  it 
being  found  that  a  gold  dollar  one-fifteenth  as  heavy  as  a 
silver  one  was  worth  more  than  the  latter,  and  that  this 
difference  in  value  was  causing  too  much  gold  to  leave  the 
country,  congress  changed  the  ratio,  leaving  the  silver  dol- 
lar just  where  it  was  in  point  of  weight,  but  reducing  the 
weight  of  the  gold  dollar  from  24.7  grains  to  23.2  grains. 


BIMETALLISM.  43 

After  a  thorough  trial  of  this  ratio  it  was  found  that  our 
gold  dollar  was  a  little  too  light,  and  that  our  silver  money 
was  more  sought  after  abroad  than  our  gold  ;  and  then  it 
was,  in  1837,  that  (still  leaving  silver  where  she  was)  we 
raised  the  weight  of  the  gold  dollar  from  23.2  grains 
to  23.22  grains,  which  ]:)roved  to  be  a  satisfactory  ratio. 
So  now,  if  after  reinstating  silver  on  the  old  basis  of  16  to  r, 
we  should  discover  that  the  gold  dollar  was  a  little  too  light 
or  a  little  too  heavy,  where  would  be  the  difficulty  in 
readjusting  it  to  suit  ourselves  and  the  interests  of  com- 
merce. But  in  doing  so,  we  should  consult  the  interests  of 
our  own  people,  not  the  interests  of  British  bankers. 

WAITING    FOR   THE    CONSENT  OF    EUROPEAN    POWERS ! 

*'  But,"  say  our  gold  standard  people,  "it  is  useless  for  us 
to  attempt  to  remonetize  silver,  unless  we  can  get  the  great 
commercial  powers  of  Europe  to  give  their  consent. ' '  But 
did  the  American  congress,  in  1873,  ask  the  consent  of  the 
great  powers  of  Europe  before  they  struck  the  deadly  blow 
at  our  sih'er  money  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  Strange  to  say,  as 
already  stated,  it  did  not  even  ask  the  consent  of  the  Amer- 
ican people,  whose  servant  it  was  supposed  to  be.  And  has 
it  come  to  this  !  In  the  name  of  all  the  gods  at  once  let 
us  ask,  has  it  come  to  this,  that  after  an  American  congress, 
without  even  consulting  the  American  people,  and  in  utter 
disregard  of  their  wishes  and  their  most  sacred  rights,  has 
passed  a  law  fraught  with  ruin  to  our  country,  we  must  then 
quietly  wait  and  suffer  the  wrong  until  we  can  get  Great 
Britain  and  all  the  other  great  powers  of  Europe  to  give 
their  gracious  consent  to  ha\'e  the  infamous  law  repealed  ? 
One  of  the  greviances  enumerated  in  the  Declaration  of 
American  Independence  as  a  reason  for  taking  up  arms 
against  Great  Britain  was  that  King  George  had  refused  his 
assent  to  wholesome  laws  for  this  country.     But  it  seems 


44  BIMETALLISM. 

that  we  are  really  in  a  worse  fix  now  than  we  were  before 
the  Revolutionary  War,  because  then  to  give  force  to  our 
laws  they  only  required  the  sanction  of  one  king,  whereas 
now  they  seem  to  require  the  sanction  of  all  the  kings, 
emperors,  and  potentates  of  Europe.  According  to  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States,  it  is  the  American  con- 
gress, and  only  the  American  congress,  that  has  power  to 
' '  coin  money  and  regulate  the  value  thereof. ' '  But  accord- 
ing to  this  new-fangled  doctrine  of  our  monometallists,  while 
congress  still  retains  the  power  to  coin  money,  it  requires 
the  concurrent  voice  of  all  Europe  ' '  to  regulate  the  value 
thereof. ' '  If  this  is  the  pitiable  condition  to  which  our 
country  is  reduced,  would  it  not  be  better  to  repudiate  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  abolish  our  Federal  Constitu- 
tion, and  ask  Queen  Victoria  and  the  British  parliament  to 
annex  us  again  as  a  colony  to  Great  Britain  ? 

If  it  was  not  necessary  to  consult  the  powers  of  Europe 
before  enacting  the  anti-silver  law  of  1873,  why  should  it 
now  be  necessary  to  consult  these  powers  before  repealing; 
that  law  ?  If  it  was  the  bad  example  of  the  American  con- 
gress, and  not  the  result  of  a  general  conspiracy  amongst 
gold  speculators,  that  caused  Germany,  France,  Italy, 
Switzerland,  Belgium  and  Greece  to  demonetize  silver,  let 
the  American  congress  now  set  them  a  good  example  by 
repealing  the  anti-silver  law,  and,  if  these  foreign  govern- 
ments will  consult  the  welfare  of  their  people  instead  of  the 
sordid  and  selfish  interests  of  their  speculators  in  gold,  they 
will  follow  that  example.  But  if  they  should  not,  after 
having  first  set  our  own  house  in  order  we  shall  then  be  in 
a  far  better  position  to  ask  other  powers  to  do  likewise. 

ARE    THEY    SINCERE? 

It  seems  impossible  to  avoid  the  suspicion  that  many  of 
those  who  are  making  the  most  noise  about  an  international 


BIMETALLISM.  45 

convention  to  settle  the  bimetallic  question,  are  doing  so 
not  because  they  desire  bimetallism,  but  simply  because 
they  are  opposed  thereto.  Believing  that  it  will  be  impossi- 
ble (or  that  they  can  render  it  impossible)  to  get  all  the 
European  powers  to  consent  to  the  proposed  reform,  they 
talk  bimetallism  for  the  sole  purpose  of  defeating  or 
indefinitely  postponing  the  very  measure  they  profess  to 
favor.  This  suspicion  is  greatly  strengthened  by  the  fact 
that,  while  professing  a  great  anxiety  to  get  bimetallism 
through  a  bimetallic  convention,  they  are  constantly  argu- 
ing in  favor  of  monometallism.  These  noisy  advocates  of 
an  international  convention  to  settle  the  money  question 
remind  one  forcibly  of  an  old  toper  whose  wife  was  urging 
him  to  quit  drink.  He  always  professed  his  earnest  desire 
to  reform,  but  invariably  excused  himself  for  the  present,  by 
naming  about  a  dozen  other  drunkards  in  the  town,  whom, 
he  said,  needed  reforming  more  than  himself.  He  argued 
that  there  was  no  use  of  just  one  man  reforming  alone,  but 
that  one  of  these  days  all  the  drunkards  in  town  were  going  to 
hold  a  temperance  convention,  and  by  common  consent  quit 
drink.  He  vowed  that  just  as  soon  as  all  the  other  drunk- 
ards he  named  would  sober  up  and  take  the  pledge,  he  too 
would  do  likewise.  And  it  is  presumable  that  just  about 
the  time  all  those  confirmed  drunkards  in  convention 
assembled  unanimously  agree  to  quit  drink,  the  inter- 
national bimetallic  convention,  of  which  we  hear  so  much 
can  be  induced  by  gold  speculators  to  endorse  bimetallism. 
We  may  rest  assured,  there  is  neither  patriotism,  nor 
reason,  nor  honor,  nor  self-respect.  In  our  awaiting  the  con- 
sent of  England  or  any  other  country  before  repealing  an 
obnoxious  law,  fastened  on  us  either  through  the  inadvert- 
ance,  the  stupidity,  or  the  treachery  of  an  American 
congress. 


46  BIMETALLISM. 

A    PREMIUM    ON    COUNTERFEITING. 

By  demonetizing  silver,  and  virtually  closing  our  mints 
against  it,  as  before  stated,  we  have  reduced  its  value  to  about 
fifty  cents  on  the  dollar  ;  and  whilst  our  government  refuses 
to  convert  silver  bullion  into  coin,  with  the  American  stamp 
upon  it,  it  is  utterly  powerless  to  prevent  individuals  from 
doing  so,  and  there  cannot  be  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  but 
that  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  silver  dollars  made 
of  genuine  silver,  in  the  exact  likeness  of  American  coin, 
are  being  daily  minted  by  private  persons  and  circulated 
amongst  our  people  as  American  money.  And  who  can 
tell  the  difference  between  a  silver  dollar  made  by  a  private 
individual  in  the  exact  image  of  government  money  and  a 
silver  dollar  made  at  a  United  States  mint,  precisely  like  it  ? 
To  the  eye  they  will  look  the  same,  to  the  touch  they  wall 
feel  the  same;  measure  them,  and  they  will  measure  the 
same;  weigh  them,  and  they  will  weigh  the  same  ;  assay 
them,  and  they  will  yield  exactly  the  same  amount  of  genuine 
sih'cr  and  of  alloy.  Were  they  paper  mo7iey  instead  of 
silver,  an  expert  might  detect  the  counterfeit.  But  who 
ever  heard  of  anybody's  having  been  convicted,  or  pun- 
ished, or  even  tried,  for  passing  a  coin  made  of  genuine 
silver  by  a  private  coiner  ?  Yet  who  can  doubt  but  that 
there  are  millions  of  such  coins  in  daily  circulation  ?  And 
does  not  our  government  stand  ready  to  redeem  every  one 
of  these  privately  coined  dollars  with  gold?  Is  not  this  in 
effect  paying  a  pre?niuni  by  the  government  for  counter- 
feiting Its  own  money  ?  Would  it  not  be  far  better  for  the 
government  to  do  its  own  coining,  rather  than  to  pay  a  lot 
of  secret  coiners  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar  for  doing  the  same 
work  ?  Here,  then,  is  another  of  the  beauties  of  our  sozmd 
money  system. 

Mr.  Edward  Wisner,  in  his  defense  of  the  gold  standard. 


BIMETALLISM.  47 

at  page  114  of  "Cash  vs.  Coin,"  says  the  Shiboleth  of 
PopuHsm,  the  creed  of  discontent,  is  that  *'the  rich  are 
growing  richer  and  the  poor  poorer. ' '  And  whilst  denying 
that  this  is  true,  he  adds:  '' If  it  were  true  it  would porte7id 
chaos  for  social  order  and  a  war  of  classes. ' ' 

Now,  does  not  everybody  know  in  his  heart  of  hearts 
that  this  is  true,  and  does  not  everybody  know  that  the 
signs  of  the  times  point  significantly  to  the  very  evil  he 
names,  to  wit,  the  ' '  chaos  of  social  order  afid  a  war  of 
classes  f '  Are  not  the  rich  growing  richer  and  the  poor 
poorer?  When  was  it  in  the  history  of  the  world  that  there 
were  so  many  vast  fortunes  accumulated  in  so  short  a  time  ? 
When  so  many  multi-millionaires  as  there  are  to-day  ?  Fifty 
years  ago  we  could  occasionally  hear  of  a  millionaire,  but 
prior  to  1850  whoever  heard  in  America  of  a  multi-million- 
aire— a  man  many  times  a  millionaire?  But  now  the 
country  swarms  with  them.  They  have,  in  fact,  got  to  be 
almost  the  only  respectable  people,  as  tested  by  the  present 
gold  standard.  Their  daughters  turn  up  their  pretty  noses 
at  the  sight  of  any  young  American  w^hose  father  cannot 
count  his  fortune  by  the  millions.  Hence,  if  they  fail  to 
match  themselves  with  a  husband  worth  his  millions,  they 
have  got  into  the  habit  of  sending  over  to  Europe  and  pur- 
chasing some  scion  of  nobility,  leaving  it  to  hhn  to  furnish 
the  dignity  while  they  furnish  the  dollars. 

But  we  were  considering  Mr.  Wisner's  denial  of  the  fact 
that  the  rich  are  growing  richer  and  the  poor  poorer,  in  con- 
nection wath  his  admission  that  '  *  if  that  were  true,  it  would 
portend  chaos  of  social  order  and  a  war  of  classes. ' '  Now, 
is  it  not  true  ?  The  writer  does  not  deny  that  other  causes, 
besides  our  anti-silver  laws  have  contributed  to  that  result  ; 
for,  unfortunately,  ever  since  money  became  one  of  the  chief 
factors  in  our  elections,  and  ever  since  the  hired  emissaries 
oi  vast  corporations  began  to  crowd  the  lobbies  and  besiege 


4^  BIMETALLISM. 

the  committee  rooms  of  our  legislative  bodies,  both  state 
and  federal,  and  were  found  buttonholing  and  wining  and 
dining  both  our  'law-makers  and  the  judges  of  our  courts, 
somehow  or  other  many  of  our  laws  and  judicial  decisions 
have  seemingly  leaned  very  emphatically  to  the  side  of  the 
rich,  and  against  the  poor.  But  while  upon  the  money 
question,  let  us  take  one  more  view  of  this  anti-silver  Act 
of  1873,  in  order  to  show  still  more  clearly  just  how  it  is 
making  the  poor  still  poorer.  That  law  found  millions  of 
our  producing  classes,  farmers,  mechanics  and  others  in 
debt,  and  millions  more  in  the  midst  of  enterprises,  that,  on 
the  one  hand,  could  not  be  abandonded  without  ruinous 
loss,  whilst  on  the  other  they  could  not  be  prosecuted  without 
money.  This  law,  as  we  have  seen,  both  enhanced  the  value 
of  money  and  reduced  the  value  of  the  productions  of  labor. 
The  necessary  result  was  that  those  millions  of  producers, 
who,  but  for  the  demonetization  of  silver,  could  have  paid 
their  debts  by  the  sale  of  their  produce,  soon  found  their  pro- 
duce so  depreciated  in  value  as  to  be  insufficent  to  pay 
their  liabilities.  The  consequence  was,  that  while  many  pro- 
ducers, after  selling  what  they  had  and  paying  out  the  last 
dollar  to  their  creditors,  found  themselves  still  in  debt  and 
compelled  to  borrow  money  in  order  to  live  and  carry  on 
their  business.  Others  again,  believing  that  the  hard  times 
were  only  temporary,  rather  than  sell  their  produce  at  what 
they  deemed  a  sacrifice,  preferred  to  plunge  still  deeper  in 
debt  by  borrowing  money  and  mortgaging  their  property 
until  they  could  sell  for  a  better  price.  But,  Instead  of  prices 
growing  better  under  the  influence  of  a  continual  advance 
in  the  purchasing  power  cJ  money,  they  have  from  that  time 
on  continually  grown  worse.  It  is  not  denied  that  there  have 
occasionally,  here  and  there,  been  ups  and  downs  In  the 
prices  of  produce,  just  as  there  are  occasional  ups  as  well  as 
doivns  in  descending  from  the  summit  of  the  Sierra  Nevada 


BIMETALLISM.  49 

Mountains  to  the  sea.  But  the  tendency  nevertheless  has 
been  continually  downward  ever  since  the  demonitization 
of  silver. 

For  example,  we  have  seen  that  between  the  date  of  our 
anti-silver  legislation  in  1873  and  the  year  1893,  silver  grad- 
ually descended  in  value  from  $1.29  an  ounce  in  1873  down 
to  75  cents  in  .1893.  American  wheat,  one  of  our  greatest 
staples,  keeping  company  with  silver,  gradually  descended 
in.  price  from  $1.31  in  1873  down  to  68  cents  in  1893.  So 
with  American  cotton.  In  1873  cotton  was  worth  $19.30, 
from  which  figure  it  gradually  descended,  until,  in  1893,  it  was 
worth  but  $7.  A  careful  examination  of  the  facts  will  show 
a  corresponding  decline  in  pretty  much  every  other  staple 
commodity  upon  which  the  American  producer  relies  for 
money  to  pay  his  debts,  support  his  family,  and  carry  on 
his  business.  Now,  wath  this  constant  decline  in  the  value 
of  all  he  has  to  sell,  and  constant  increase  not  only  in  the 
amount  of  interest  he  must  pay,  but  in  the  value  of  the 
money  he  owes,  can  anybody  deny  that  under  these  condi- 
tions the  debtor,  as  a  rule,  is  becoming  poorer?  It  is  admitted 
that  there  is  one  class  of  our  poor  that  are  not  becoming 
poorer,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  have  already  become 
just  as  poor  as  poor  can  be.  Of  this  class  is  composed  that 
immense  army  of  tramps  and  beggars,  without  a  home, 
without  employment,  without  shelter,  or  food,  or  raiment, 
living  from  hand  to  mouth  upon  the  cold  charity  of  the 
world,  God  only  knows  how.  They^  it  is  true,  are  not  getting 
poorer,  and  cannot,  because  they  have  reached  the  bottom  of 
the  ladder.  But  who  does  not  know  that  the  ranks  of  this 
immense  army  are  year  by  year  being  recruited  from  those 
who  have  gradually  descended  from  our  industrious,  intelli- 
gent and  once  prosperous  classes  of  citizens  ?  When,  a  short 
time  ago,  this  continent  resounded  with  the  tramp  of  our 
armies  of  unemployed,  moving  toward  the  federal  capitol, 


50  BIMETALLISM. 

in  order  to  bring  their  grievances  before  the  American  con- 
gress, why  was  it  that  everywhere  they  evoked,  not  only  a 
warm  sympathy,  but  the  material  aid  and  earnest  words  of 
encouragement  from  the,  as  yet,  more  prosperous  classes,  to 
whom  they  were  but  srrangers  ?  Ah  !  the  reason  is  plain. 
The  industrial  classes  of  this  whole  country  felt  in  their  in- 
most hearts  that  there  was  a  cause  of  grievance  common  to 
themselves  and  these  armies  of  penniless  paupers.  Although 
not  reduced  to  the  same  degree  of  want  and  misery,  they 
only  had  to  look  first  behind,  at  the  elevated  positions  of 
affluence,  comfort,  and  honorable  independence  whence  they 
themselves  had  been  driven,  and  then  down  into  the  dark 
abyss  of  dependence,  humiliation,  and  poverty  to  which 
they  were  rapidly  drifting,  in  order  to  see  that  the  catise  of 
these  armies  of  poor,  penniless  people  was  their  cause.  It 
may  be  that  Mr.  Wisner,  petted  and  pampered  in  the  lap  of 
luxury,  a  stranger  to  honest  toil,  basking  in  the  gracious 
smiles  of  multi-millionaires,  and  accustomed  * '  to  bend  the 
pliant  hinges  of  the  knee  that  thrift  might  follow  fawning, ' ' 
knows  nothing  of  the  growing  poverty  of  the  laboring  masses 
of  his  own  country;  but  no  patriot,  no  citizen,  who  will  look 
around  him  with  an  impartial  eye,  can  fail  to  realize  that  the 
poor  are  daily  growing  poorer.  And  has  not  enough  been 
said  to  prove  the  other  half  of  the  proposition  equally  true — 
that  the  rich  are  growing  richer?     No  sane  man  will  deny  it. 

GOVERNMENT   MONEY    AND   THE   BANK. 

But  our  gold  standard  law,  in  other  ways  besides  these 
already  mentioned,  serves  as  a  powerful  aid  in  hastening  the 
work  of  widening  the  gulf  between  the  rich  and  the  poor. 
Look,  for  example,  at  our  so-called  national  banking  system. 

As  already  shown,  the  destruction  of  our  silver  primary 
money  by  lowering  the  value  gf  produce  on  one  hand  and 
raising  the  value  of  money  on  the  other,  rendered  it  Impera- 


BIMETALLISM.  5 1 

tive  for  mukitudes  of  producers  to  borrow  money,  some  to 
pay  their  debts  and  others  to  Uve  and  carry  on  their  busi- 
ness. Now  one  would  naturally  have  supposed  that  after 
having,  by  means  of  its  anti-silver  legislation,  reduced  the 
great  mass  of  our  industrial  and  producing  classes  to  this 
necessity  of  borrowing  money,  our  gov^ernment  ought,  in 
common  honesty,  if  possible,  to  have  provided  some  direct 
and  inexpensive  way  of  relieving  this  necessity.  But  no,  it 
simply  left  them  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  so-called 
national  banks  to  supply  them  with  money.  And  how  sup- 
ply them  ?  Let  us  see.  It  is  so  arranged  by  the  law  that 
the  government  cannot  loan  its  money  directly  to  the  poor, 
not  even  for  a  liberal  interest,  no  difference  what  the  security. 
But  while  the  government  cannot  loan  the  people's  money 
to  the  people  who  need  it,  even  for  interest  and  on  good 
security,  it  is  so  arranged  that  wealthy  banking  associations, 
owning  government  interest-bearing  bonds,  need  only  go 
and  deposit  these  bonds  as  security  in  the  United  States 
treasury,  where  they  will  be  safely  kept  for  the  benefit  of 
the  depositors,  and  thereupon  the  United  States  treasurer 
turns  over  to  the  depositors,  in  United  States  circulating 
notes,  to  be  used  as  money,  90  per  cent  of  the  value  of  the 
bonds.  This,  be  it  remembered,  is  the  people's  money. 
Had  it  been  the  money  of  the  congressmen  that  made  the 
law,  such  a  law  would  never  have  seen  the  light  of  day. 
Well,  what  do  these  bankers  do  with  this  money  of  the  peo- 
ple ?  Why,  they  take  it  and  loan  it  out  ort  good  security 
for  interest  at  the  rate  of  6,  7,  8,  10,  and  12  per  cent.  And 
who  pays  that  interest  ?  Why,  the  very  men  whose  brain, 
and  muscle,  and  toil  earned  that  money.  Yes,  every  time 
a  mechanic  buys  a  hammer,  a  keg  of  nails,  a  pane  of 
glass,  or  a  pound  of  putty,  he  puts  money  into  the  United 
States  treasury;  every  time  a  farmer  buys  a  plow,  a  rake, 
a  tin  pan,  or  a  harness  for  his  horse,  he  puts  money  into 


52  BIMETALLISM. 

the  United  States  treasury;  every  time  a  housewife  buys 
a  dress,  a  pair  of  shoes,  or  a  baby's  frock, she  pays  a  tariff 
that  goes  into  the  United  States  treasury. 

Whoever  analyzes  this  question  of  pubhc  revenue  will  find 
that  the  chief  burden  ojf  governmental  support  rests  upon  the 
shoulders  of  our  laboring  classes.  And  yet,  when  these 
people  need  a  little  money — the  fruit  of  their  own  labor — the 
government  says  to  them :  ' '  You  cannot  get  it  here  at  any 
price;  you  are  poor,  and  have  no  government  bonds;  we 
can't  be  bothered  with  you,  no  difference  what  security  you 
may  offer.  But  w^e  will  turn  this  money  over  gratuitously 
to  our  national  banking  associations,  and  if  you  need  money 
you  must  go  to  them  for  it,  and  pay  in  good,  sound  gold 
coin,  just  such  interest  as  they  may  demand;"  and,  although 
this  is  the  people's  money,  the  people  who  use  it  must  pay  a 
heavy  interest,  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  but  for  the 
benefit  of  the  bankers.  Perhaps  somebody  may  say :  '  'Why 
cannot  these  people  who  want  money  go  directly  to  the 
treasuiy  and  get  it  without  interest,  just  as  the  bankers  do, 
by  making  the  required  deposit  of  government  bonds  ? ' '  The 
first  answer  to  this  question  is,  that  the  law  closes  the  doors 
of  the  treasury  against  all  comers  except  bankiyig  associa- 
tions; and,  secondly,  nothing  less  than  $30,000  in  govern- 
ment bonds  will  answer  the  purpose  in  any  case.  And  it  is 
not  every  poor  man  that  is  blessed  with  so  valuable  a  boon. 
Now,  will  anybody  say  that  this  is  not  legislation  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  rich  and  against  the  poor  ? 

HOW    BANKERS    AVOID     TAXES. 

But  here  is  another  way  in  which  the  unholy  alliance  between 
our  gold  standard  and  our  national  banking  system  is  operat- 
ing to  make  the  rich  richer  and  the  poor  poorer,  namely, 
by  throwing  the  whole  burden  of  government  off  of  the 
rich  onto  the  poor.     The  rich  national  banker,  with  his  hun- 


bim?:tallism.  ^,3 

dreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  in  interest-bearing  bonds, 
while  drawing  interest  on  his  bonds  and  drawing  interest  on 
the  money  gratuitously  furnished  him  by  the  government, 
pays  not  one  cent  of  taxes,  either  state  or  municipal,  on  this 
valuable  property.    Section  3701  of  revised  statutes  provides : 

**That  all  stocks,  bonds,  treasury  notes,  and  other  obligations 
of  the  United  States,  shall  be  exempt  from  taxation,  by  or  under 
state,  municipal,  or  local  authority." 

So  that  the  national  banker  and  bond-holder  may  roll  in 
wealth  and  luxury,  and  yet  go  almost  scott  free  from  all  the 
burdens  of  taxation.  To  show  how  admirably  this  system 
works  in  the  interest  of  bankers,  when  aided  by  the  mal- 
administration of  local  laws,  Mr.  W.  H.  Harvey,  in  his 
''Financial  School  up  to  Date,"  p.  21,  publishes  a  certificate 
from  the  Illinois  state  auditor  of  accounts,  giving  the  amount 
of  money  and  property  assessed  to  all  the  bankers  of  Cook 
County,  embracing  the  great  city  of  Chicago,  as  it  stood  for 
last  year  (1894).  Cook  County,  it  will  be  remembered,  is 
nearly  all  covered  by  the  city,  so  that  there  is  very  little  room 
for  agriculture,  and  yet  the  assessed  value  of  all  the  agri- 
cultural implements  of  the  farmers  of  Cook  County  was  nearly 
double  that  of  all  the  money  and  credits  as  assessed  to  all 
the  bankers  and  brokers  of  that  great  city  !  Here  are  the 
figures,  as  certified  to  over  his  official  seal,  by  Mr.  David 
Gore,  the  auditor  of  public  accounts,  to  wit: — 

Agricultural  tools,  implements,  and  machinery  184,392 

Money  of  bankers  and  brokers 43;925 

Credits  of  banks,  bankers,  etc 10,000 

Only  think  of  it !  Is  it  not  amazing  that  the  bankers  and 
brokers  are  so  shielded  by  the  law  that  with  all  their  com- 
bined wealth,  with  all  their  hoarded  millions,  the  entire 
assessed  value  of  all  the  money  of  all  the  bankers  and 
brokers,  when  added  to  all  the  debts  and  credits  due  them, 
should  both  together  foot  up  but  $53,925 — not  more  than 


54  '  UIMKTALLISM. 

enough  to  buy  a  decent  residence  in  Los  Angeles  city?     Is 
it  not  astounding?     But  these  are  the  auditor's  figures. 

Yet  somebody  must  pay  the  taxes  to  support  the  goveo-n- 
ment  of  both  that  immense  city  and  state.  And  who  are  they 
that  must  bear  this  burden?  Why,  they  are  our  producing 
classes.  They  are  the  same  people  that  have  to  pay  the 
interest  on  the  government  bonds  owned  by  these  bankers 
and  brokers;  the  same  people  who  have  to  pay  these  same 
bankers  a  heavy  rate  of  interest  for  government  money.  Yet 
Chicago  is  but  a  fair  sample  of  many  other  American  cities. 
And  is  it  possible  that  in  a  repubHcan  government  this  pro- 
cess of  injustice,  unequal  taxation,  and  oppression,  this 
building  up  of  immense  fortunes  for  a  few  by  the  impover- 
ishment and  ruin  of  the  many,  can  continue  indefinitely?  It 
is  not  possible.  A  day  approaches  when  a  remedy  can  and 
must  be  found.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  it  may  be  a  peaceful 
remedy.  Some  of  us  have  already  lived  to  see  our  country 
once  drenched  in  fratricidal  blood  by  one  of  the  most  terrible 
wars  recorded  in  history,  and  let  us  pray  to  God  that  our 
eyes  may  never  see  its  like  again.  The  writer  is  neither  a 
prophet  nor  the  son  of  a  prophet,  but  a  careful  study  of  our 
financial  and  industrial  conditions  convinces  him  that  we  are 
rapidly  approaching  a  crisis,  when  the  people  must  correct 
the  monstrous  wrong  of  1873  by  means  of  the  ballot,  or 
else  prepare  either  for  bondage  or  a  bloody  war,  the  end 
and  result  of  which  none  but  God  can  see.  "^ 

TWO    KINDS    OF    ANARCHISTS. 

This  government  has  two  great  enemies  to  fear,  namely 
anarchy  in  disguise  and  anarchy  without  disguise.  An 
anarchist  without  disguise  is  an  open,  outspoken  enemy  of 
all  law,  human  and  divine,  who  neither  recognizes,  nor  pre- 
tends to  recognize  the  binding  force  of  either.  But  the 
anarchist  in  disguise,  with  no  more  respect  for  law  than  the 


lUMETALLISM.  55 

Other,  often  makes  loud  professions  of  reverence  for  the 
law,  more  especially  when  aiming  to  thwart  and  defeat 
justice  in  the  name  of  the  law.  Such  an  anarchist,  with 
hypocritical  professions  of  patriotism  and  piety  on  his  lips, 
would  not  hesitate,  by  the  polluting  power  of  gold,  to  pur- 
chase a  seat  in  the  American  senate,  corrupt  a  congess  or  a 
court,  and  poison  at  their  sources  the  very  fountains  of 
justice.  Strip  him  of  all  disg"uise  and  you  will  find  him  a 
friend  of  law  so  long,  and  only  so  long,  as  he  can  pervert  it 
to  his  own  vile  purposes.  The  other  wing  of  the  anarchist 
party  is  less  cunning,  less  deceitful,  less  wealthy,  less  influ- 
ential, and  therefore  less  dangerous  to  the  public.  The 
American  people,  as  a  body,  are  pre-eminently  a  law-loving 
and  a  law-abiding  people,  and  have  nO  sympathy  with 
anarchists  of  either  school,  neither  will  they  knowingly  and 
wilfully  long  .submit  to  be  ruled  by  either  class;  because 
(to  repeat)  they  are  a  law-loving  people.  But  let  the  great 
body  of  our  citizens  become  thoroughly  convinced  that 
their  government  has  passed  into  the  hands  of  those  hypo- 
critical and  disguised  anarchists,  who,  in  pursuit  of  their 
unholy  purposes,  have  converted  the  law  into  a  sword  for* 
their  destruction,  instead  of  a  shield  for  their  protection, 
and  how  long  will  it  take  them  to  decide  in  favor  of  no  law 
and  710  government,  in  a  preference  to  a  government  and  a 
system  of  laws  that  wrongfully  strip  them  of  their  hard 
earnings,  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  hold  them  in  bond- 
age and  in  utter  contempt,  leaving  them  nothing  but  pov- 
erty, nakedness,  starvation,  misery  and  death  ? 

Men  are  not  necessarily  bad  because  they  are  bankers, 
nor  because  they  are  rich.  One  of  the  best  men  the  writer 
ever  knew  was  a  wealthy  banker;  but  he  could  not  have 
been  counted  as  such,  had  he  been  capable  of  using  his 
money  for  corrupt  purposes;  those  who  do  such  things  are 
the  common   enemies   of    mankind.     They   are   the    real 


5"  KlMb.l  AJ.IJS.M, 

aiiarclilsts  in  disguise,  who,  by  making  the  law  an  instru- 
ment of  oppression,  and  thus  bringing- it  into  disrepute  in  the 
eyes  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  are  daily  forcing  into 
the  ranks  of  the  open  and  undisguised  anarchists,  thou- 
sands of  honest,  industrious,  patriotic  citizens;  not  because 
they  prefer  anarchy  to  law,  but  because,  as  the  lesser  of  two 
evils,  they  prefer  open  anarchy  rather  than  a  hypocritical 
and  disguised  anarchy.  They  prefer  the  anarchy  that 
knows  no  law,  rather  than  the  anarchy  that  only  knows 
the  law  as  an  instrument  for  the  robbery  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  ruin  of  their  country.  And  is  there  any  logic, 
any  system  of  sound  reasoning,  to  refute  the  argument  that 
brings  them  to  this  conclusion  ?  If  there  is  any  sych  logic 
the  writer  confesses  he  has  never  learned  it. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  our  government  is  entirely  in 
the  hands  of  these  anarchists  in  disguise.  Indeed,  we  must 
thank  God  that  it  is  not.  But  who  is  so  blind  as  not  to  see 
that  in  the  last  few  years  it  has  made  rapid  strides,  and  is 
now  moving  with  fearful  velocity  in  that  direction  ?  How 
long  will  it  take  us  to  reach  there,  at  our  present  rate  of 
;ipeed  ?  Have  we  not  already  arrived  at  a  point  where  the 
most  of  men,  in  forecasting  results,  even  in  our  highest 
courts — the  last  refuge  of  the  patriot' s  hope — rely  less  on 
the  justice  of  the  cause  than  on  the  wealth  and  influence  of 
the  litigants  ?  Let  an  absolute  public  conviction  once  take 
tlie  place  of  the  now  prevailing  suspicion,  that  money  is  the 
power  that  rules  this  land,  and  good-bye  to  the  government. 

We  yet  have  time  by  an  honest,  manly,  independent  and 
patriotic  use  of  the  ballot,  to  a\'ert  impending  disaster. 
But  if  there  is  not  intelligence  and  patriotism  enough  left 
amongst  the  people  to  snatch  the  country,  by  means  of  the 
ballot,  from  the  grasp  of  corrupt  corporations  and  gold 
syndicates,  then  we,  as  a  people,  deserve  to  wear  the  iron 
chains  of  bondage  which  our  gold-worshiping  masters  are 


niMElAl.l.lSAI.  57 

now  preparing'  to  ilvct  forever  on  our  limbs.  There  is  no 
alternative.  We  must  either  free  ourselves  by  the  ballot  or 
else  prepare  either  for  base  bondage  or  a  bloody  civil  war, 
unequaled  in  the  history  of  the  world  in  point  of  malignity, 
devastation  and  human  slaughter. 

CARLISLE    OF    1 878    VS.   CARLISLE   OF    1895. 

It  will  be  impossible  to  more  appropriately  conclude  this 
pamphlet  than  by  quoting  the  following  extract  from  the 
very  able,  eloquent  and  unanswerable  speech  delivered  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  by  the  Honorable  John  G. 
Carlisle,  of  Kentucky,  February  21,  1878.  On  that  occa- 
sion Mr.  Carlisle  is  reported  to  have  said: 

*  "  I  know  that  the  world's  stock  of  precious  metals  is  none  too 
large,  and  I  see  no  reason  to  apprehend  that  it  will  ever  be  so. 
Mankind  will  be  fortunate  indeed  if  the  annual  production  of  gold 
and  silver  coin  shall  keep  pace  with  the  annual  increase  of  popu- 
lation and  industry.  According  to  my  views  of  the  subject,  the 
conspiracy  which  seems  to  have  been  formed  here  and  in  Europe, 
to  destroy  by  legislation  and  otherwise  from  three-sevenths  to  one- 
half  of  the  metallic  money  of  the  world,  is  the  most  gigantic  crime 
of  this  or  any  other  age.  The  consummation  of  such  a  scheme 
would  ultimately  entail  more  misery  upon  the  human  race  than  all 
the  wars,  pestilences  and  famines  that  ever  occurred  in  the  iiistory 
of  the  world.  The  absolute  and  instantaneous  destruction  of  half  the 
entire  movable  property  of  the  world,  including  houses,  ships,  rail- 
roads and  other  appliances  for  carrying  o-n  commerce,  while  it 
would  be  felt  more  sensibly  for  the  moment,  would  not  produce 
anything  like  the  prolonged  distress  and  disorganization  of  society 
that  must  inevitably  result  from  the  permanent  annihilation  of  half 
of  the  metallic  money  of  the  world." 


*  A  friend  at  the  writer's  elbow  says,  ^'According  to  newspaper  reports,  a  man 
claiming  the  same  name  as  the  author  of  the  above  eloquent  denouncation  of  'the 
most  gigantic  crime  of  this  or  any  other  age,'  has  been  recently  stumping  Ken- 
tucky and  other  states  of  the  West  and  South  in  defense  of  this  same  '■gigantic 
ci-ime.'  "  And  this  friend  remarks  that  for  the  good  name  and  fame  both  of  Ken- 
tucky and  her  said  gifted  son,  he  earnestly  hopes  that  either  the  speeches  on  the 
moiiey  question  lately  reported  as  having  been  delivered  by  the  Honorable  John 
G.  Carlisle  were  falsely  reported,  or  else  that  the  Honorable  John  G.  Carlisle  who 
delivered  them  is  altogether  a  different  man  from  the  author  of  the  above  scath- 
ing arraignment  of  the  Act  demonetizing  silver  in  1873. 


APPENDIX   A. 

Production  of  Gold  and  Silver  in  the  World,  1792-1892. 


Calendar  Years. 


i792-i8cx) 

i8oi-r8io 

1811-1820 

1821-1830 

1831-1840 

1841-1848 

1849 

1850. 

1851 

1852 

1853 

1854 

1855 

1856 

1857 

1858.. 

1859 

i860 

1861 

1862 

1863 

1864 

186"; 

1866 

1867 

1868 

1869 

1870 

1871  

1872 

1873 

1874 

1875 

1876 

1877 

1878 

1879 

1880 

1881 

1882 

1883 

1884 

1885 

1886 

1887 

1888 

1889 

1890 

1891 

1892 

Total 


Gold. 


Silver  (Coining 
N'alue). 


$106,407,000 
118,152,000 
76,063,000 
94,479,000 
134,841,000 
291,144,000! 
27,100,000! 
44,450.000' 
67,600,000 
132,750,000 
155,450,000 
127,450,000 
135.075,000 
147,600,000 
133.275.000 
124,650,000 
124,850,000 
119,250,000 
113,800,000 
107,750,000 
100,950,000 
1 13,000,000 
120,200.000 
121,100,000 
104,025,000 
109,725,000 
106,225,000 
106,850,000 
107,000,00c 
99,600,000 
96,200,000 
90,750,000 
97,500,000 
103,700,000 
114,000,000 
119,000,000 
109,000,000 
106,500,000 
103,000,000 
102,000,000 
95,400,000 
101,700,000 
108,400,000 
106,000,000 
105,775,000 
110,197,000 
123,489,000 
113.150,000 
120,519,000 
130,817,000 


$328,860,000 
371,677,000' 
224,786.000 
191,444,000! 
274,930,000! 
259,520,0001 
39,000,000 
39.000,000 
40,000,000 
40.600,000 
40,600,000 
40,600,000 
40,600,000 
40,650,000 
40,650,000 
40,650,000 
40,750,000 
40,800,000 
44,700,000 
45,200,000 
49,200,000 
51,700,000 
51,950,000 
50,750,000 
54,225,000 
50,225,000 
47,500,000 
51,575,000 
61,050,000 
65,250,000 
81,800,000 
71,500,000 
80,500,000 
87,600,000 
81,000,000 
95,000,000 
96,000,000 
96,700,000 
102,000,000 
111,800,000 
115,300,000 
105,500,000 
118,500,000 
120,600,000 
124,281,000 
140.706,000 
162,159,000 
172,235,000 
186,733,000 
196,605,000 


Total. 


$435,267,000 
489,829,000 
300,849,000 
285.923,000 
400,771,000 
550,664,000 
66,100,000 
83,450,000 
107,600,000 
173.350,000 
196,050,000 
168,050,000 
375.675,000 
188,250,000 
173,925,000 
165,300,000 
165,600,000 
160,050,000 
158,500,000 
152,950,000 
156,150,000 
164,700.000 
172,150,000 
171,850,000 
158,250,000 
159,950,000 
1 53.725,000 
158,425,000 
168,050,000 
164,850,000 
178,000,000 
162,250,000 
178,000,000 
191,300,000 
1 95,000,000 
214,000,000 
205,000,000 
203,200,000 
205,000,000 
213,800,000 
210,700,000 
207,200,000 
226,900,000 
226,600,000 
230,056,000 
250,903,000 
285,648,000 
285,385,000 
307,252,000 
327,422,000 


$5,633-908,000 


$5,104,961,000 


$10,738,869,000 


Treasury  Department,  Bureau  of  the  Mint,  August  i6,  1893. 


(58) 


APPENDIX   B. 


Mr.  Sauerbeck's  table,  showing  the  vahie  of  silver  for  20  years 
before  and  after  1873. 


Years 

Yearly 

Yearly 

Years 

from  1873  back 

Index-numbers 

Index-numbers 

from  1873  on 

to  1854. 

of  Silver. 

of  Silver. 

to  1892. 

1873 

974 

974 

1873    • 

1872 

99.2 

95.8 

1874 

1871 

99.7 

93.3 

1875 

1870 

99.6 

86.7 

1876 

1869 

99.6 

90.2 

1877 

1868 

99.6 

86.4 

1878 

1867 

99-7 

84.2 

1879 

1866 

100.5 

85.9 

1880 

1865 

100.3 

85.0 

188  [ 

1864 

100.9 

84.9 

1882 

1863 

lOI.I 

83.1 

1883 

1862 

100.9 

83.3 

1884 

i86r 

99-9 

79.9 

1885 

i860 

101.4 

74.6 

1886 

1859 

102.0 

73-3 

1887 

1858 

lOT.O 

70.4 

1888 

1857 

IOI.5 

70.2 

1889 

1856 

lOI.O 

78.4 

1890 

1855 

100.7 

74.1 

1891 

1854 

lOT.I 

654 

1892 

<59) 


APPENDIX    C. 


Mr.  Sauerbeck's  computation,  and  the  Index-numbers  of  silver 
for  the  years  from  1874  to  1892,  inclusive. 


Mr.  Sauerbeck's  Index-numbers. 

Years. 

Index-number  of  45 

Index-number  of 

Principal  Commodities. 

Silver. 

1874 

102 

95.8 

1875 

96 

1876 

95 

86.^     . 

1877 

94 

90.2 

1878 

87 

86.4 

1879 

83 

84.2 

1880 

.   88 

85.9 

1881 

85 

85.0 

1882 

84 

84.9 

1883 

82 

83.1 

1884, 

76 

83.3 

1885 

72 

79-9 

1886 

69 

74.6 

1887 

68 

73.3 

1888 

70 

70.4 

1889 

72 

70.2 

1890 

72 

78.4 

1 891 

72 

74.1 

1892 

68 

65.4 

Commenting  on  this  table  Archbishop  Walsh  remarks:  "It  is 
sufficient  to  note  that,  in  one  case,  the  index-numbers  show  a  fall 
from  102  to  68,  and,  in  the  other,  a  fall  from  95  to  65.  What  more 
striking  evidence  could  be  looked  for,  that  the  fall  all  round  is  the 
result,  not  of  causes  affecting  merely  the  prices  of  commodities  on 
the  one  hand,  nor  of  causes  affecting  merely  the  price  of  silver  on 
the  other,  but  of  the  one  cause  that  influences  both  alike;  that  is  to 
say,  a  progressive  increase  of  value  in  the  standard,  gold,  in  refer- 
ence to  which  the  prices,  whether  of  commodities  or  of  silver,  are 
stated?" 


(60) 


APPENDIX   D. 


The  Average    Price  of    Wheat,  Cotton  and  Silver  for  the 
Years   Named. 


Wheat. 


1872  . 
1873. 
1874. 
1875. 
1876  . 

1877. 
1878  . 

1879. 

1880  . 

1881  . 

1882  . 
1883. 
1884  . 
1885. 

1886  . 

1887  . 
1888. 

1889  . 

1890  . 

1891  . 

1892  . 
1893. 


I1.47 
1.31 
1.43 
1. 12 
1.24 
1. 17 

1-34 
1.07 
1.25 
I. II 
1. 19 

1-13 

1.07 

.86 

.87 


Cotton. 


Silver. 


1872 
1873 
1874 
1875 
1876 

1877 
1878 
1879 
1880 
1881 
1882 
1883 
1884 
1885 
1886 
1887 
1888 
1889 
1890 
189 1 
1892 
1893 


$19.31872 
18.81873 
15.41874 
i5.o:i875 
12.9  1876 
11.81877 


II. I 
9-9 

11.4 


1878 
1879 
1880 


11.4-1882 
10.8^883 


10.5 
10.6 

9-9 

9-5 


i««4 
1885 
1886 
1887 


9.8|i888 

9.9' 1889 

10. 1. 1890 


lo.o 
8.7 
7.0 


1891 
1892 
1893 


$1.3.1 
1.29 
27 
24 
15 
20 

15 
12 

14 
13 
13 
II 

I.OI 

1.06 

.99 

•97 
.93 
•93 
1.04 
.90 
.86 
•75 


September,  1893. 

See  pages  50  and  342  U. 


S.  Statistical  Abstract. 


(61) 


APPENDIX    E. 


The  average  price  of  Silver,  per  ounce,  for  twenty  years  previ- 
ous to  demonetization,  and  for  twenty  years  after. 


Before. 


i^73 
1872 
1871 
1870 
1869 
1868 
1867 
1866 
1865 
1864 
1863 
1862 
1861 
i860 

1859 
1858 

1857 
1856 
1855 
1854 
1853 


I1.29 

•  1-32 

•  1.32 

•  1.32 
.  1.32 
.  1.32 

•  1.32 

•  1-33 

•  1-33 

•  1-34 

•  1-34 

•  1.34 

•  1-33 

•  1-35 
.  1.36 

•  1-34 

•  1.35 

•  1-35 

•  1-34 

•  1.34 
.  1-34 


After. 


873 
874 
875 
876 

877 
878 

879 
880 
881 
882 
883 
884 
885 
886 


890 
891 
892 
893 


I1.29 
.  1.27 
.  I  24 
.   I  15 


20 

15 
12 

14 

13 

13 

II 

II 

06 

•99 

.97 

•93 

•93 

1.04 

.98 

.86 

.75 


See  page  50,  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  U.  S.  for  1892,  issued  by 
U.  S.  Treasury  Department. 


(62) 


APPENDIX    F. 

Total  Gold  and  Silver  Used  as  Money  of  the  World,  in  form 
of  Coin  and  Bullion. 

[From  Coin's  Handbook,  p.  28  (F).j 

Mr.  Leech,  Director  of  the  United  States  Mint,  has  prepared 
for  the  Congressional  Committee  on  Coinage  a  series  of  tables 
showing  the  estimated  and  officially  reported  amounts  of  gold, 
silver  and  paper  in  circulation  as  money  in  different  parts  of  the 
world.  The  following  table  comprises  the  portions  of  the  state- 
ment in  reference  to  gold  and  silver: 


Country. 


United  States  .  .  . 
United  Kingdom  .    . 

France 

Germany 

Belgium 

Italy 

Switzerland    .    .    .    . 

Greece    

Spain 

Portugal 

Austria-Hungary  .  . 
Netherlands  .  .  .  . 
Scandinavian  Union 

Russia 

Turkey 

Australia 

Egypt 

Mexico 

Central  America  .  . 
South  America    .    . 

Japan   

India 

China 

The  Straits    .    .    .    . 

Canada    

Cuba,  Hayti,  etc  .    . 


Gold. 


$702,018,869 
550,000,000 
900,000,000 
500,000,000 
65,000,000 
140,000,000 
15,000,000 

2,000,0C0 

100,000,000 

40,000,000 

40,000,000 

25,000,000 

32,000,000 

190,000,000 

50,000,000 

100,000,000 

100,000,000 

5,000,000 


45,000,000 
90,000,000 


Totals $3,727,018,869 


l6,000,CKX) 

20,000,000 


Silver. 


1482,071,346 

100,000,000 

700,000,000 

145,000,000 

55,000,000 

60,000,000 

15,000,000 

4,000,000 

125,000,000 

10,000,000 

90,000,000 

65,000,000 

10,000,000 

60,000,000 

45,000,000 

7,000,000 

15,000,000 

50,000,000 

500,000 

25,000,000 

50,000,000 

900,000,000 

700,000,000 

100,000,000 

5,000,000 

2,000,000 


53,820.571,346 


(6: 


APPENDIX  G. 


(Page  50  from  U.  S.  Statistical  Abstract,  1892.) 

RATIO    OF    SILVER    TO    GOLD. 

COMMERCIAL  RATIO  OF  SILVER  TO  GOLD  FOR  EACH 

YEAR    SINCE    1687. 

[Note.— P'rom  1687  to  1832  the  ratios  are  taken  from  the  tables  of  Dr.  A.  Soet- 
beer;  from  1833  to  1878  from  Pixley  and  Abell's  tables;  and  from  1878  to  1892  from 
daily  cablegrams  from  London  to  the  Bureau  of  the  Mint.] 


Year  Ratio 


Year  Ratio 


Year  Ratio 


Year  Ratio    Year  Ratio    Year    Ratio 


1687 
1688 
1689 
1690 
1691 
1692 

1693 
1694 

1695 
1696 
1697 
1698 
1699 
1700 
1701 
1702 

1703 
1704 

1705 
1706 
1707 
1708 
1709 
1710 
1711 
1712 

1713 
1714 

1 7 15 
1716 
1717 
1718 
1719 
1720 
1721 


14.94 
1494 
15.02 
15.02 
14.98 
1492 
14.83 
14.87 
15.02 
15.00 
15.20 
15-07 
14.94 
14.81 

1507 
15.52 
15-17 
15.22 

15.11 
15.27 
15.44 
15.41 
15.31 
15.22 

15-29 
15.31 
15.24 

15.13 
15-11 
15.09 

15-13 
15. 1 1 
15.09 
15.04 
15.05 


1722 
1723 
1724 

1725 
1726 
1727 
1728 
1729 
1730 
1731 
1732 

1733 
1734 
1735 
1736 
1737 
1738 
1739 
1740 
1741 
1742 
1743 
1744 
1745 
1746 

1747 
1748 
1749 
1750 
1751 
1752 
1753 
1754 
1755 
1756 


15.17 
15.20 
15.  II 
15.11 
15-15 
15-24 
i5..ii 
14.92 
14.81 
14.94 
15.09 
15.18 
15-39 
15.41 
15.18 
1502 
14.91 
14.91 
14.94 
14.92 
14.85 
14.85 
14.87 
14.98 

15-13 
15.26 
15.11 
14.80 
14.55 
14.39 
14-54 
14-54 
14.48 
14.68 
14.94 


1757 
1758 
1759 
1760 
1761 
1762 

1763 
1764 

1765 
1766 
1767 
1768 
1769 
1770 
1771 
1772 

1773 
1774 

1775 
1776 

1777 
1778 
1779 
1780 
1781 
1782 
1783 
1784 
1785 
1786 
1787 
1788 
1789 
1790 


1487 

I79I 

14.85 

1792 

14.15 

1793 

14.14 

1794 

14.54 

1795 

15-27 

1796 

14.99 

1797 

14.70 

1798 

14.83 

1799 

14.80 

1800 

14.85 

1801 

14.80 

1802 

14.72 

1803 

14.62 

1804 

14.66 

1805 

14-52 

1806 

14.62 

1807 

14.62 

1808 

14.72 

1809 

14.55 

I8I0 

14.54 

I8II 

14.68 

I8I2 

14.80 

I8I3 

14.72 

I8I4 

14.78 

I8I5 

14.42 

I8I6 

14.48 

1817 

14.70 

I8I8 

14.92 

I8I9 

14.96 

1820 

14.92 

I82I 

14.65 

1822 

14.75 

1823 

15.04 

1824 

1825 

i5.7:> 

1859 

1826 

15-76 

i860 

1827 

15.74 

j86i 

1828 

15.78 

1862 

1829 

15-78 

1863 

1830 

15.82 

1864 

I83I 

15.72 

1865 

1832 

15-73 

1866 

1833 

15-93 

1867 

1834 

15-73 

1868 

1835 

15.80 

1869 

1836 

15.72 

1870 

1837 

15.83 

1871 

1838 

15.85 

1872 

1839 

15.62 

1873 

1840 

15.62 

1874 

1 841 

15.70 

1875 

1842 

15.87 

1876; 

1843 

15-93 

1877 

1844 

15.85 

1878 

1845 

15.92 

1879 

1846 

15.90 

1880 

1847 

15.80 

1881 

1848 

15-85 

1882 

1849 

15-78 

1883 

1850 

15.70 

18841 

1 85 1 

15.46 

1885 

1852 

15.59 

1886' 

1853 

15.33 

1887 

1854 

15-33 

1888 

1855 

15-38 

i889| 

1856 

15.38 

1890! 

1857 

15.27 

1891I 

1858 

15.38 

1892 

15.19 
15.29 
1550 

15-35 
15.37 
15-37 
15.44 
15-43 
15-57 
15.59 
15.60 

15-57 

15.57 

15.63 

15.92 
I6.I77 
16.59!: 
17.88  0 
17.22- 
17.94^ 

18.05^ 
18.16N 
18.19- 
18.64  h 

18.57  m 

19.41 ; 

20.78  ^ 
21.130 
21.99^ 
22.09  ^ 

19.75(1] 
20.92  Q 
23.72  r 


*  Since  1892  Silver  has  gone  down  utitil  it  stands  32  to  i.    (Z.  M.) 


(64) 


STARTLING    COMPARISON. 

The  following  are  a  few  of  the  largest  items  of  American  bond 
and  mortgage  debts,  copied  from  Mr.  Stanley  Wood's  late  work, 
advocating  the  gold  standard,  and  entitled  ^'  Aiiswer  to  Coiu's 
Financial  School.''  His  table  will  be  found  on  page  134  of  his 
book.  For  brevity  we  omit  all  classes  of  debts  that  aggregate  less 
than  one  thousand  millions  of  dollars.  Those  above  that  amount, 
as  given  by  our  Gold  Standard  author,  are  as  follows: — 

State  and  municipal  bonds  .    .    .    .  11,135,000,000 

Railroad  bonds 5,6ooyOOO,ooo 

Mortgage  debt,  corporations,  etc  .     5,000,000,000 
Farm  and  home  mortgages     .    .    .      2,500,000,000 

|i4, 235,000,000 
Adding  to  this  from  the  same  table, 

"  Loans  and  discounts"      .    .   $4,140.000,000 
Gives |i8, 375,000,000 


Including  only  the  above  five  classes 
of  American  debts  gives 

$18,375,000,000 

About  two  and  one-half  times  as  much 
as  all  the  Gold  and  Silver  money  in  the 
world. 


$7'547, 590.215 
All  the  Gold    and 
Silver  money  in  the 
world. 


Amoii 


500  prut  JlSlhetttT."^  ='">^--'  to  "  «ne  of 

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demand  may  be  renewed  ifLS^,,^'"'-.   B"*'  not  iS 

^^iration^fj^anperioa"  °PP''«"'"'n  is  made  before 


APR 


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DEC  4 


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MAY  7  -  1985 


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than  to  prate  about  an  over  inflation  of  the  money  market  by  the  ren^ 
eti;^ation  of  silver  ? 


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